Artis IT

VoIP

Cost Effective Phone Solutions For Your Business

Are you frustrated by the expense when you get your current long distance bill? Do you dread seeing the bottom line cost of installing a new phone system for your business? Do you wish you had the know-how or expertise to install the right solution, but are not sure how to get there or who to work with? These are questions we have heard from our customers in the past. If any of these situations sound familiar, you might want to read a little more about our recent adventure into the world of voice over internet protocol, or more commonly referred to as VoIP.

What Is VoIP?

VoIP is an acronym that stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. The IP-part is the same IP that is used in your run-of-the-mill LAN (local area network) and the same IP that is used in Al Gore's world wide web. You can use VoIP at home through providers like Vonage and Lingo. There are literally dozens of providers out there...some good and some bad. You can also use VoIP in your business as a solution for your telephone needs.

Why VoIP?

Well, the short answer here is cost. More specifically, TCO or total cost of ownership. VoIP, when used correctly, can save you a lot of money. When considering cost savings opportunities available with VoIP, there is one recurring theme - network convergence. For the laymen, a converged network exists when both your voice and data networks run on the same infrastructure. That is, a converged network exists when the same hardware and support personnel can support both voice and data traffic. Huge cost savings can be realized when you can remove half of your support staff and half of your hardware infrastructure. In addition to network convergence savings, VoIP can allow you to purchase long distance calling rates at fractions of pennies per minute.

Why Not VoIP?

The rub is, it's less reliable than POTS (plain old telephone system). Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone a long time ago. The result is that there has been significant refinement and upgrade added to the telephone infrastructure. In all honesty, VoIP is a relatively new technology. As a result, there has been less opportunity for refinement. One major difference between VoIP and POTS comes in the form of power infrastructure. In a traditional telephone system, electrical power is supplied to the phone across the same wire as the telephone signal. As a result, you don't need additional power from your electrical company to run your traditional analog phone. This explains why your analog phone at the house still works even when the power is out. When using VoIP, there is no electricity supplied by way of your internet service provider. In this situation, you need to have power provided by a traditional source, like the local electrical company.

In a recent project, Artis IT had the opportunity to compare three different configurations for a business phone system including a PBX (private branch exchange). Our customer's requirements were fairly common for a small business. They wanted substantial functionality, high quality and low cost - a tough (but typical) combination for sure. We evaluated 3 potential solutions for our customer:

At Artis IT, we believe in covering all of our assets. Therefore, please consider the following to be an honest disclaimer. The best solution for one customer isn't ALWAYS the best solution for another. That seems simple enough, right? If you read between the lines, what we mean is that choosing a phone system for your business (i.e. your communications backbone) is a non-trivial task and shouldn't be treated as one. We recommend that you (or someone you trust) perform a full due diligence effort in selecting a technology that is new (to you) and take time to carefully consider vendors, products, costs and capabilities. For example, a company with 3 users might have different needs and requirements than a company of 30, 300 or even 3000. Our project was constrained to a company that has multiple locations, a staff of approximately 15 and the near term potential to grow to 30. Additionally, the customer required some advanced capabilities like call queues and conference bridge lines. With that said, please see our results below.

Characteristic Hosted VoIP Commercial VoIP Open-source VoIP
Total Score 25 30 31
Features 3 5 5
Access to Documentation 5 5 4
Reliability 3 5 5
Scalability 2 5 4
Time To Implement 5 3 3
Upfront Cost 4 1 5
Monthly Cost 3 5 5

From an analysis standpoint, one could certainly argue that "access to documentation" is not as important as "cost" or "reliability". In many cases, reliability and cost are inversely proportional. If not that severe, these characteristics are certainly related to one another. However, in our analysis and evaluation, we found the open source VoIP solution from Asterisk.org was a delightful surprise. The open source solution is feature rich, reliable, cost effective and well documented. Asterisk is truly another winner for the open source community! Additionally, if you require commercial support and shrink wrapped documentation, the have a commercial side to their business - check out Digium.com.

What About Features?

Exactly what can Asterisk do? The real question is what can it not do. From a PBX standpoint, Asterisk provides all of the commonly required capabilities found in any commercial PBX.

In addition to all of this, there is a robust and open source API for creating extensions and business applications for integration with the phone system. That is, if you need it to do something that it currently does not do, you can extend the product's functionality to fit your need.