|~|Voipmain.jpg|~|Companies are attracted by the cost savings of migration from a traditional to an IP-based telephony system. |~|The Middle East is fast catching up with the rest of the world when it comes to implementation of internet protocol (IP) telephony in the enterprise environment.
Simply put, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) permits the human voice to be carried in data packet format.
It consists of a special handset that converts voice to data, special switches that direct data to its destination, and software that ensures that the data is reconverted at its destination into recognisable human voice.
“Therefore, both voice (which gets converted into data packets) and data travel over the same network,’” says Hisham El-Amili, general manger, GCC, Mitel Networks.
The benefits are far too compelling for a company to ignore. Technology research firm IDC predicts the worldwide IP telephony market will grow at an average of 19% each year between 2007 and 2009 to reach US$10.9 billion.
Furthermore, according to a report by research firm Meta Group, when an ‘impending event’ requires re-evaluation of telephony requirements businesses consider implementing IP telephony in 90% of the cases. These findings are echoed in the region.
“In most green-field installations IP telephony gets the nod,” says Anwer Kotob, regional systems engineering manager, Cisco, Gulf region and Pakistan.
Its a point shared by Gabriel Karam, business development manager, Alcatel MEA. He estimates that betweeen 10% and 20% of all telephony systems being implemented in the Middle East are IP-based.
This includes both pure IP systems and those that can handle both IP and traditional telephony. Karam goes on to claim that IP-based systems presently account for 50% of all new implementations worldwide.
He expects the figure to increase to 75 % by 2007.
This aggregation of data and voice promises major financial benefits to users. According to IDC, cost savings have emerged as a major driver of migration to IP-based telephony by eliminating dedicated voice lines by moving traffic to the corporate data network.
The research firm also says that in many instances, IP private box exchange (PBX) offer more capabilities than traditional PBXs at lower cost; are often easier
to manage than traditional systems, especially in larger enterprises with multiple facilities; and changes cost less.
But for Joseph Mehawej, marketing manager, Middle East, Nortel Networks; internet telephony’s real advantage is the fact that it enables employee mobility.
“The real value is not the couple of dollars you’re saving on your conference call or telephone call today,” he says.
“It is the enhancement of employee productivity. When you can keep contact with your employees all the time, gaining five or 10 minutes of availability per employee every day,” he notes.
“That is a huge saving across the corporation,” he goes on to add.
This aspect of IP-based telephony allows users to duplicate th- eir desktop functions and capabilities at remote sites, home, or on a laptop.
From a software-based telephone in their laptops, for example, mobile workers can call their home office or anywhere in the world at the bulk long-distance rates negotiated by the company and without the use of a calling card.
Software-based telephones are often integrated with portals, which boosts productivity since they can route calls to cellular telephones, and set up Web-based tele- or video-conferences.
But does migrating to IP-based telephony make sense for all types of companies? As a rule, claim the vendors, any company which is starting from scratch should give it serious consideration.
“Today, if you have a new headquarter or a new site where you are deploying a telephone system, an IP-based solution is the way to go, because this is what the market has come to be based upon,” says Roger El Tawil, channel and marketing director, for Avaya MENA.
This is particularly true of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) which are looking to establish a network quickly. According to Mehawej; “We are today seeing focused interest from the SMB market. Earlier the adoption was mainly by large enterprises.”
“By nature, SMBs are very dynamic and aggressive; they tend to adopt technology quickly. Where you have a headquarters with two or three branches, the savings on internal communications are significant for an SMB,” he adds.
If fact, IP telephony is a great ally of companies that need to expand quickly, says El Tawil.
“A lot of banks are opening up new branches. They can increase their number of users in a couple of days with all the services they require,” he says.
This is made possible since no new infrastructure is needed.
It is often a matter of simply extending the core network
infrastructure to the branches by linking the branch over an
IP connection.
The ability to extend corporate networks easily beyond the physical boundaries of the company is a major benefit of
IP telephony.
Companies that have large mobile workforce, therefore, too should find it useful.
“It may be important to enable users to have the same communications capabilities regardless of which office they are in, or if they are working at home or are on the road.
Many of these capabilities are inherent or easier to integrate with IP telephony systems,” says Khalid Khan, marketing manager, MENA, 3COM.
In fact, certain businesses, such as those trading over the internet, lend themselves rather naturally to IP-based solutions, says El-Amili.
Such activities require not only voice interactions but also
real-time access to databases and even use of messaging tools such as instant messaging (IM).
VoIP integrates easily with the infrastructure needed to carry out database-linked internet trading activity.
In general, it is rather difficult to integrate traditional telephony solutions with other enterprise-wide applications.
However, since VoIP runs on the same network as the one used by such applications, it comes in handy when it comes to facilitating collaboration, whi- ch may require video phones, voice mail, IM, and so on.
The situation however, is different when a company already has invested substantially in the traditional systems.
According to Karam, “The decision to embrace IP telephony depends on the internal structure of the organisation, the stage they are with their existing telephony infrastructure.”
“There are people who have completely used up their TDM infrastructure and are looking to upgrade, and many of them are going in for complete replacement,” he claims.
While compelling, there is at least one issue that enterprises need to be ready to tackle once they decide to go the VoIP way: security.
Security threats
Since VoIP solutions run over a company’s common networking infrastructure, they are vulnerable to security threats.
There are two parts to deliver-ing secure IP telephony infrastructure. One, confidentiality of the information; and two, it should not be possible for anyone to hijack the network and use it to make international calls.
Confidentiality would mean preventing anyone from plugging into the network, and listening to voice conversations.
For this, says Mehawej, “All the local area network (LAN) switch configurations should be set with security in mind.”
“So if a port is not being used it should be disabled; authentication technologies should be employed at every single port, so whenever someone comes in and plugs through the network, he’s authenticated before he gets access.” he adds.
A layered approach, feels Kara- m, is essential for a company to secure its VoIP implementation. He suggests companies take specific security measures across three layers: the first
layer is the data infrastructure layer; then there is security
at the communications server — which handles the voice communication — level; another substrata of security needs to be
embedded at the layer which deals with all the plug-ins
and passwords.
Different companies have varying degrees of sensitivity to security issues. And for those with highly sensitive environments, such as banking, encryption can be added at the communication level.
The risks associated with VoIP are no greater than those a network administrator already has to deal with as part of his day-to-day job. As long as the network is secure, IP telephony is safe too. Besides, the benefits far outweigh the risk.
The question that remains
is the real cost of realising the gains of IP telephony. ||**||Security threats|~|Kotobbody.jpg|~|In most green-field installations IP telephony gets the nod, says Anwar Kotob of Cisco.|~|Since VoIP solutions run over a company’s common networking infrastructure, they are vulnerable to security threats.
There are two parts to delivering secure IP telephony infrastructure. One, confidentiality of the information; and two, it should not be possible for anyone to hijack the network and use it to make international calls.
Confidentiality would mean preventing anyone from plugging into the network, and listening to voice conversations.
For this, says Mehawej, “All the local area network (LAN) switch configurations should be set with security in mind.”
“So if a port is not being used it should be disabled; authentication technologies should be employed at every single port, so whenever someone comes in and plugs through the network, he’s authenticated before he gets access.” he adds.
A layered approach, feels Karam, is essential for a company to secure its VoIP implementation.
He suggests companies take specific security measures across three layers: the first layer is the data infrastructure layer; then there is security at the communications server — which handles the voice communication — level; another substrata of security needs to be embedded at the layer which deals with all the plug-ins and passwords.
Different companies have varying degrees of sensitivity to security issues. And for those with highly sensitive environments, such as banking, encryption can be added at the communication level.
The risks associated with VoIP are no greater than those a network administrator already has to deal with as part of his day-to-day job. As long as the network is secure, IP telephony is safe too. Besides, the benefits far outweigh the risk.
The question that remains is the real cost of realising the gains of IP telephony.
Kotob claims; “For a company wanting to implement it, there are different elements they would need to invest in. First is the call manager and the public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway they would typically install at the head office; then the IP PBX, all this is a few thousand dollars.”
Costs also depend on the number of trunk lines needed to connect to the local operator.
The type of phones that are deployed too affects costs. These can range from IP phones that are similar to analogue ones to multi-line videophones with large colour displays and soft-touch keys.
Prices of handsets range from less than US$100 to US$400 and above for ones with advanced features.
How intensively a firm intends to integrate various features such as voice mail, instant messaging, presence awareness, call accounting and so on, is also a factor that affects the price tag of the solution.
The cost of deployment also depends on what work is required on the data network prior to deploying the IP telephony system and ensuring the network is secure, and the benefits that the organisation expects from the new system.
“If the network areas have already been addressed, then the typical cost per user will range from US$300 to US$700 per user depending on the range of functionality required and the type of phones deployed,” says Khan.
Once a company has honed in on a solution, it needs a migration or rollout plan.
There are a number of areas a company may have to examine prior to implementation. Firstly, the necessity of the right skills to implement the solution, for which the merging of the IT and the telecom team is essential.
“Integrated teams would be handling both voice and data. You will need the IT team to acquire the telephony skills, and for the telecom team to acquire the IT skills. Training is very important in handling such implementations,” says Karam.
On the networking side there are several requirements; 3Com’s Khan insists that companies need to make sure their networks have the necessary bandwidth and quality of service (QoS) capabilities to ensure that the real-time interactive applications can be handled alongside the existing data traffic.
This is because of the rather peculiar nature of voice applications, as Kotob explains: “Voice is a light application in term of requirement, it only requires 16kbps on a network that can usually deliver 10mbps, but what’s special about voice is that it requires this on a very steady basis. It doesn’t tolerate congestion too much.”
If the network is old, it may not be adequately ready to take on VoIP. “When you’re dealing with an old network, something with hubs that isn’t good a infrastructure for IP telephony,ensuring QoS over such networks is hard,” says Kotob.
“Once you migrate from hubs to modern switches and almost immediately they’re ready for telephony,” he says.
Apart from taking a networking audit as part of its
pre-migration arrangements, Khan suggests a security audit would help reduce the risk of the network or the systems being compromised.
Says Khan, “These audits combined with a comprehensive design review that accommodates all the needs of the users ahead of implementation will ensure a smooth and seamless transition to the new phone system.”
It’s a point shared by Alami. “There should be continuity of their existing telephony operation with minimal changes or disruption,” he says.
One way to do this, according to Kotob, is through installation of IP telephony at the front-end along with the existing PBX if it isn’t fully depreciated.
Says Kotob, “So new users can be on IP telephony and while the old ones continue to be on PBX. The two systems will work seamlessly, and the new users will get the added benefits of all the productivity gains. This will enable a migration at a pace that the enterprise is happy with.”
For organisations with multi-location offices, there are two
options. The first one is to replace the traditional systems in the headquarters and branches with the VoIP solution.
The second option is to just replace the branches and keep the traditional telephony system at the headquarters.
Karam points out the advantages of the latter, “With the second option, they get 70% of the benefits of VoIP solution with just 30% of total investment compared to a full VoIP solution.”
“So there is no need to go for 100% from the beginning. Step-by-step, they can upgrade their headquarters to a VoIP
solution,” he adds.
Most of the time for implementation goes into cabling and wiring. The rest of the network deployment can be done is a matter of days.
According to Kotob, “If it’s a green-field installation, it
will take a number of days to integrate everything. Once the
cabling is done, you just need to add switches, phones, PCs, call manager, etc.”
“If you’re migrating from an existing solution, you might want to space it over a longer period, depending on user training and user expectation,” he adds.
In fact not much training is needed to for when it comes to simple telephony functions. The training that would be required is to allow people to take advantage of the new features and integrate them into their work habits.
“Training would be required to develop familiarity with the vertical applications that you might integrate with your telephony infrastructure,” Kotob states.
“Users should be given a variety of ways of gaining knowledge on the new system, from online self-paced training to having trainers walking around the office helping users access features of the system,” says Khan.
For Khan, consultation with the users is an important to
ensure they know which of the new features are relevant
to their roles.
“These features can then be enabled in their profile, but features they don’t require are disabled. So they are not overwhelmed by the new capabilities,” he goes on to say.
Unlike other IT deployments, VoIP generally does not demand substantive changes in the way people work.
Therefore, rolling out the solution is much less
of a headache. Plus there are signs that the networks of future will be built around IP.
After resisting for a while, telecom operators world-over have started incorporating IP in their infrastructure. And going forward, the impending convergence — between fixed and mobile telephony — too will make significant use of IP technologies.
All this augurs well for VoIP. As IP becomes more pervasive at the telecom infrastructure level, possibilities for IP telephony can only grow.
Maybe there will be a time when migration to VoIP will not be such a big deal and all telephony will be IP-based. Till then, VoIP is the way to go.
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