Project Planning Guide: Stuffing Voices Into Packets
Your business may not be using Internet standards to make calls, but it will—eventually. So far, however, the cost to switch to voice-over-Internet Protocol systems from conventional phone setups often outweighs the savings. Some companies, however, are finding that wide-scale adoption of IP telephony can reap a significant payback.
The expense of replacing every phone, beefing up the data network and providing employee training is hard to recoup just from the savings on your company's phone bill. Analysts say it usually makes the most sense to consider voice-over-IP networks when retiring an older private branch exchange (PBX) phone system.
The University of South Florida, for example, last year installed an Avaya S8700 server to extend its existing Definity G3R PBX phone system over IP networks, a project that only cost around $80,000. "We didn't have to spend a ridiculous amount of money to move to the new technology," says Kate Nidasio, USF's director of telecommunications. The university now provides IP-based voice service to 200 employees at 12 off-campus sites.
Industrial-equipment maker Ingersoll-Rand took a more aggressive tack. The company was paying AT&T $14,000 to $17,000 per month for teleconferencing services at its Huntersville, N.C., facility. It eliminated that expense when it installed Cisco's IP voice system last year and handled its voice conferencing internally, says Damon Cahill, Ingersoll-Rand's director of infrastructure strategy.
