CRTC's
new chair, Konrad von Finckenstein stated today that the key questions
will not be whether deregulation will continue but rather how fast and
to what degree. Mr. von Finckenstein stated “make no mistake – less
regulation in telecom has been and will continue to be the commission's
prime objective”.
There now seems to be alignment between the CRTC and
Industry Minister Maxime Bernier. I believe that the Canadian consumer
will ultimately benefit from a less regulated environment. Taking the
handcuffs off the Incumbents will result in more innovation,
competitiveness and more choices.
Five years ago, I would have
said that we needed to give VoIP competitor's a chance to get
established, but today I believe that consumer based VoIP service is
priced artificially high and that competition is required to spark new
and innovative features. Let the competition begin!
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
February 2007 Archives
Internet Telephony Magazine has named Tekelec's 7000 Enhanced VoIP Solution as recipient of its 2006 Product of the Year Award.
The Tekelec 7000 EVS combines the Tekelec 7000 Integrated Switching Solution and the Tekelec 6000 VoIP Application Server, creating a system that carriers can deploy in single or distributed locations. The solution enables carriers to quickly roll out IP-enabled service offerings to residential and business customers, and it supports both time division multiplexing (TDM) and next-generation interfaces. These interfaces include IMS-Ready session initiation protocol (SIP), media gateway control protocol (MGCP) and Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP). Its flexibility allows carriers to extend investments in legacy networks as they migrate to a converged voice, broadband data, video and wireless network model.
The Tekelec 6000 VoIP Application Server was acquired and renamed when Tekelec acquired VocalData in 2004. The 6000 is a mature and richly featured product. As early as 2001, I've had several opportunities to perform vendor evaluations on behalf of my service provider clients and on every occasion the T6000 rates best-in-class in nearly every evaluated category.
Tekelec has done a great job of integrating the application server with the T7000 and as a result have earned the Internet Telephony Magazine award.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
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That's it, as soon as my new Bell line is active I will be discontinuing my Vonage service!
I have been a Vonage customer for several years and I have tolerated a multitude of service issues. But today's issue is the last straw. I have two Vonage telephone numbers, and for the last hour, neither one of them is reachable. Callers trying to reach me at either of my numbers are getting a variety of responses including: an announcement that states that the number was never activated, another says that the call cannot be completed as dialed, and at times just a fast-busy signal.
As I have mentioned here previously, services like Vonage are vulnerable to a variety of issues that can affect service reliability and quality. The most important of which is that they don't own the network connection to my home and therefore have absolutely no ability to provide any type of QoS once the call leaves their network.
And while my service quality has been impaired previously due to congestion on my ISP's network, today's problem is due to a problem within Vonage's infrastructure or with one of their suppliers. When combined with other service issues such as phantom calls, voicemail problems and unreliable voice quality, the downside outweighs the benefits of the advanced features that are not yet available from Bell.
IP Telephony technology is mature, robust and enables a multitude of new services. However, running a phone company is not a trivial matter and design, implementation and operations must be nearly flawless in execution. I will return to the Incumbent until a more viable alternative is available.
Over time, I'm convinced that many other residential VoIP consumers will reach the same conclusion that I have:
I am not willing to sacrifice primary line service reliability or quality just to save a few dollars per month.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
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Choosing a Service Delivery Model / IP-Centrex vs. IP-PBX
(Part 3 of a 6 Part Series)
(Part 3 of a 6 Part Series)
Part 1 of this series provided some tips to help you create a solid and credible business justification for an IP Telephony migration. Part 2 focused on the Human Factor of an IP Telephony implementation.
Part 3 of this series will provide some guidance to assist you in
choosing between a Premise-based or Hosted IP Telephony solution.
For the purpose of clarity, the following terms and definitions will be used in this article:
A
premise based IP Telephony solution. Most or all of the components of
the solution are located at the customer premise. The components are
usually purchased by the organization. The product is usually designed
to serve a single company. In some instances, a vendor may own and
manage the IP-PBX as part of a managed service.
IP-Centrex:
Similar
to regular Centrex, an IP-Centrex solution is hosted by a service
provider. The components that deliver the service are designed to serve
hundreds or thousands of customers. With the exception of telephones
(which are located at the client), most of the functional components
are located in a secure environment at the service provider’s location.
IP-Centrex or IP-PBX ?
The
first question that should be answered is whether your organization
will even consider outsourcing a vital service such as voice
communication services. For some organizations, corporate policy or
culture will not permit outsourcing services that are considered
mission-critical. In those cases, the choice is clear: IP-PBX.
What follows is high-level comparison of the two service delivery models. It should be noted that the comparisons are not absolute. There are of course exceptions and the suitability of the service type will be dependent on the particular circumstances within your organization.
| | IP-Centrex | IP-PBX |
| Service Availability | IP-Centrex service availability is limited in | |
| Small vs. Large Business | IP-Centrex
services are best suited for small to medium organizations (10 to 200)
users. IP-Centrex can offer a rich set of features and functionality
that small organizations cannot typically afford to build on their own.
In addition, many small companies lack the staff and expertise to
implement IP Telephony on their own. | IP-PBX solutions are available for the smallest to largest organizations. |
| Capital vs. Operational Expenditures | IP-Centrex
will require less initial capital expenditures and may offer more
predictable operational spending. However, typically the two most
costly factors in an IP Telephony solution are network upgrades and
telephones. These two elements may necessitate a significant initial
capital investment. A service provider may be willing to bundle these
costs into the monthly fee. Operations of the internal infrastructure
may also result in increased operational expenses above the recurring
cost of the service. | An
IP-PBX is subject to the same potential costly network upgrade costs as
IP-Centrex. These, and all other solution costs, will require a greater
initial investment than IP-Centrex. Operational costs should be lower than IP-Centrex but these may be more difficult to predict and control. |
| Customization | In
general, service providers build their solutions so that they can be
reliably replicated, delivered and managed across their customer base.
This is important since customization for thousands of customers could
result in an operation that would be impractical to manage and operate.
Your organization will likely be limited to a specific set of features
and products that are predefined in the IP-Centrex service. This may
result in less flexibility and ability to adapt to new business
requirements. I am not aware of an IP-Centrex solution that offers an
API to individual end-customers. | IP-PBX
solutions will offer more customization options. In addition, an IP-PBX
solution may have APIs that allow the integration with external
business processes and applications. |
| Company Staff, Expertise and History | Organizations
that are currently Centrex customers may not have the experience
required to install and operate an IP-PBX solution. However, it is
important to note, that unless you also outsource the network
infrastructure, your company will still be required to manage and
operate the infrastructure required to deliver the IP-Centrex service
within your organization. | Designing,
installing and operating an IP-PBX solution requires skills not
typically found in either Telecom or IT. An IP-PBX solution will
necessitate associated training and may require the use of external
expertise during the design, implementation and early stages of
operations. |
| E911 | Enhanced
911 capabilities vary among service providers. Most will be able to
deal effectively with locations that are directly connected to the
IP-Centrex service. However, if your organization has other locations
where IP-Centrex is being delivered across your network from a central
service-provider connection point, the IP-Centrex solution may not be
able to identify the location of the 911 caller. | Enterprise-class
IP-PBX solutions from the major vendors can be engineered to provide
reliable E911 services to users located within a predefined geographic
network boundary. |
| Integrated Applications | Integrated
applications such as Call Centres, Instant Messaging, Presence and
Meet-Me Conferencing may not be available from an IP-Centrex based
solution. Additional monthly or usage charges may apply if these types
of services are available. | Integrated
applications are available with IP-PBX solutions. They may be included
in the core software or they may require a one-time purchase and follow
up maintenance charges. |
| Admission Control | Unless
the IP-Centrex solution supports RSVP (I’m not aware of any that do so)
it will likely be unaware of bandwidth utilization conditions inside
your network and will therefore be incapable of rejecting a call
attempt, even if insufficient network resources are available to
support the call. | Some
IP-PBX vendor solutions incorporate devices distributed at key
locations within your network or support RSVP to allow the system to
determine if sufficient network resources exist to allow a call and
ensure voice quality. |
| Disaster Recovery & Survivability | With
a typical IP-Centrex solution, if part or all of your organization’s
network was non-functional, incoming calls could still be handled by
the IP-Centrex system, in a couple of different ways:
The
circuit connection(s) from your organization’s data network to the
service provider can potentially be a single point of failure. The
survivability aspects already discussed, and the addition of redundant
circuits and components, can mitigate the risk. | Some
IP-PBX solutions can compensate (at least partially) for data network
circuit failures with some form of local (on-site) backup systems. At a
minimum, these backup systems will allow extension-to-extension calling
and will allow outgoing calls, including 911 calls. Distributed call control and PSTN connectivity or additional data network redundancy can mitigate the risk. Primary
call control system failure would result in the inability to process
incoming calls unless some form of alternate call routing had been
previously arranged with the telephone company. It would also be
necessary for the associated supporting systems and processes to have
been in place prior to the failure event. |
- Ensure that the service provider is financially stable and that you trust them to provide a reliable service over the long term.
- Negotiate an acceptable
- Attain a service commitment for the term of the contract and a “not-to-exceed” increase upon renewal.
- Ensure that the service can scale to accommodate your expected growth.
Conclusion
In
general, IP-Centrex service is best suited for small to medium
business. Large organizations will typically require more
functionality, customization and service control than is available from
IP-Centrex. Hybrid models that combine IP-PBX and IP-Centrex may be a
viable model. For example, large organizations with many geographic
locations may choose an IP-PBX for larger buildings and IP-Centrex for
remote and lower user-density branch locations.
RIC
has extensive experience with both service models from both the service
provider and enterprise perspectives and we can assist you in
determining what is best suited for your organization.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
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The
Peel Regional Police have issued a public advisory related to 911 &
VoIP. The advisory echoes the comments I have previously made on this
issue. I applaud them for taking the initiative to inform the public
with accurate information on this important issue.
Link here.
As always I make the distinction between best-effort delivery VoIP services and Enterprise-Class IP Telephony. The latter can effectively address all of the 911 issues.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
Full Text Follows:
February 6, 2007
Ontario 9-1-1
Advisory Board. Consumers should contact their VoIP telephone service
providers to clarify the options and restrictions of their products
pertaining to access to 9-1-1 . VoIP service providers are required to advise consumers of the limitation of their service in regards to accessing 9-1-1.
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Link here.
As always I make the distinction between best-effort delivery VoIP services and Enterprise-Class IP Telephony. The latter can effectively address all of the 911 issues.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
Full Text Follows:
February 6, 2007
Peel, ON 06 Feb 07 – Peel Regional Police, along with the
Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a telephone service that connects
calls to the internet as a means of communicating with other phones.
The VoIP system is becoming increasingly popular because it is cheaper
to rent and make long distance calls. The traditional
Here are some of the limitations of VoIP services during an emergency:
- VoIP
has two types of telephone services: Nomadic (no fixed address) and
Non-nomadic (having a fixed address linked to the telephone and the
internet connection).
- Nomadic phones and some
fixed phones (depending on your provider) calling 9-1-1 must connect
first to a third party call centre and that call centre must then
re-direct it to the appropriate 9-1-1 centre.
- The
VoIP service provider’s call centre may be sending your emergency call
to a non-emergency telephone number, which will result in delays and
could have serious consequences.
- If the caller is unable to speak or the call is disconnected, the call centre may not be able to determine the address of the emergency.
- If your service provides enhanced
- When using some VoIP services automatic location information is not provided to the
Consumers are strongly urged to consider these facts and ask the following questions before subscribing to a VoIP service:
Will I be able to dial
Do you provide enhanced
Will my
Will my address information be presented to the
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This is Part 2 of a 6 Part Series
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Part one of this series
provided some tips to help you create a solid and credible business
justification for an IP Telephony migration. The rest of this series
will provide some tips and best practices to help you achieve a
successful implementation. While this series may be beneficial to small
organizations, the target audience is for those deploying medium to
large IP Telephony solutions.
White
Papers and articles related to IP Telephony migration best practices
are common. However, most are technology focused and ignore a critical
success criterion: The Human Factor. Choosing the right vendor,
architecture, network upgrades, QoS, facilities and security are all
important but an implementation can fail miserably if you have not
incorporated the human element into your project plan.
Organizational Impact
You
should first conduct an analysis to determine the impact and potential
changes that IP Telephony may have on your organizational structure.
For
example, most organizations separate the IT and Telecom functions. This
model is not well suited to IP Telephony. In these traditional
structures, the two groups may have very little interaction if any. The
network group’s activities after all, don’t have any impact on the
telecom infrastructure. And in general, a PBX upgrade would be
irrelevant to the network group. IP Telephony changes this model
significantly. The telephony and network technologies are completely
dependent upon each other, and so to must be the staff and respective
expertise.
Review
all aspects of IT operations and support. Hours of operations, help
desk, service level agreements (internal and external), maintenance
windows, spares inventory, after-hours support and escalation
procedures must all be reviewed and modified to support the real-time
and mission critical nature of voice communications.
Culture
IP
Telephony may also necessitate some cultural changes to your IT
organization. Operations and support staff may not fully appreciate the
real-time and mission critical nature of voice. A quick swap of data
patch cables in the middle of the afternoon is no longer acceptable in
a converged infrastructure; not that it was previously, but staff could
probably get away with it without incident. Network performance or
outages demand a greater sense of urgency and quicker response and
resolution times in a converged environment.
Recommendations
1. Merge the telecom and network group.
Convergence
of infrastructure and technology is a natural consequence of IP
Telephony but in order to maximize the benefits the respective
organizations should also be converged. In order
to be effective the reorganization must be more than symbolic. Ideally,
the network and telecom personnel should be merged into a common group
under a single manager. You should consider relocating staff to a
common work area to facilitate interaction, cooperation and to foster
the building of relationships. You should strive to have this merged
group functional long before your migration actually begins.
2. Leverage the existing expertise.
Implementing
and operating an IP Telephony solution will require the experience and
skills of both the telecom and network groups. Telecom personnel
understand dial plans, PSTN connectivity, Class of Service, telephony
features and usually manage the contracts and relationships with
service providers. Network personnel, of course, manage the
infrastructure that is required to transport voice in the new
environment. Network QoS, convergence time, IP addressing plans, DNS /
DHCP, etc are skills not commonly associated with telecom staff.
3. Provide a high-level career path.
Personnel
from both groups are likely to be concerned how a migration to IP
Telephony might affect their work environment and career. For telecom
staff, you should offer them the opportunity to take network-training
courses. Conversely, network staff should receive IP Telephony / PBX
training. This cross training will help to facilitate cooperation
between the two groups and will decrease the tendency of concerned
staff from becoming uncooperative and attempting to defend their turf.
4. Communicate!
Management
and staff from across your organization should be informed of the
planned changes. Seek involvement and input from management staff early
in the process and incorporate their business needs and recommendations
into your IP Telephony solution design and architecture. Invite staff
to attend informal presentations that explain the planned changes and
how the organization will benefit. Highlight new system features that
will assist them with their daily tasks. These actions will help to
eliminate resistance, foster greater cooperation and promote greater
understanding and patience for some of the hiccups that will invariably
be encountered during the migration.
5. Training
It
may seem an obvious key to a successful implementation, but training is
often not adequately addressed. Even when the training requirement has
been considered, it is often not implemented early enough. Ensure that
your implementation staff has received the necessary training before
the implementation begins. Operations and support personnel must also
be trained before the new system goes into production.
End
user training is vitally important. You have made a significant
investment. Ensure that your employees leverage the new features so
that your organization can quickly reap the benefits outlined in your
business plan. If possible, make the training mandatory. If that is not
practical, encourage employees to attend informal training sessions
presented during lunch or other social events. When a group of
employees is migrated, have trained personnel present who can provide
personal assistance and gauge the effectiveness of your migration
tactics and employee response.
Conclusion
The
preceding tips may seem to be basic and obvious considerations for any
project plan. They are, but in my experience, the human-factors of an
IP Telephony migration are usually overlooked as everyone focuses on
the technology aspects. The result is a difficult implementation,
unnecessary politics, and resistance and most importantly, it hinders
or delays the return on the investment.
Paying
close attention to organizational and employee requirements will
greatly contribute to the success of your IP Telephony migration.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
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Wal-Mart Canada is now offering Vonage VoIP service.
One of the country's most popular retailers now offering Vonage
phone service, it's clear that VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is
moving beyond early adopters towards the mass market," said Joe Parent,
vice-president of marketing and business development, Vonage Canada.
"The agreement between Vonage Canada and Wal-Mart brings together two
industry leaders to further build credibility for Internet phone
service."
Link to the Vonage Press Release.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of Vonage subscribers are opting for VoIP in lieu of a traditional primary line service.
With the removal of the regulatory handcuffs we will likely see that Bell and Telus will begin to become more aggressive in protecting their existing client base and move to regain some of the customers that have moved to their VoIP based competitors.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
One of the country's most popular retailers now offering Vonage
phone service, it's clear that VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is
moving beyond early adopters towards the mass market," said Joe Parent,
vice-president of marketing and business development, Vonage Canada.
"The agreement between Vonage Canada and Wal-Mart brings together two
industry leaders to further build credibility for Internet phone
service."
Link to the Vonage Press Release.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of Vonage subscribers are opting for VoIP in lieu of a traditional primary line service.
With the removal of the regulatory handcuffs we will likely see that Bell and Telus will begin to become more aggressive in protecting their existing client base and move to regain some of the customers that have moved to their VoIP based competitors.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
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predicts
that the number of worldwide residential VoIP subscribers will grow
from last year’s 38 million to over 267 million by 2012. According to
ABI, most of the growth will be at the expense of the Telcos as cable
and broadband providers aggressively leverage their high-speed data
networks. Link to the article.
The numbers are impressive and, to me, somewhat worrisome. I’m convinced that many consumers are making a decision to abandon their analogue residential service without being fully informed of the potential risks including:
-
Security: Most VoIP services do not encrypt the signaling or the voice payload. I personally have been using such a service for several years and I’m not very concerned. But, at least I am aware of the potential risk and use my service accordingly.
-
Power Interruptions: Cable operators will typically provide an analogue adapter with battery backup and have some level of backup power within their infrastructure. Assuming that all the backup systems have been properly maintained (a big assumption), and that all of the automated systems function as planned, residential VoIP subscribers can expect the service to remain active for a few hours at best. For most other VoIP service provider subscribers, a power interruption affecting the subscribers’ homes will result in an immediate service failure.
-
911: When it comes to automatically identifying the location of a 911 caller, rules vary from country to country. In Canada, (assuming the provider complies with regulations), a 911 caller may first be directed to a national call centre where an agent will confirm the location of the caller then route the call to the appropriate local emergency service. It is an additional step in the process with a potential for failure and it may increase response time. Additionally, in traditional analogue voice services, the 911 operator can prevent the caller from disconnecting the call; not so with residential VoIP services. And as discussed in the next point, whether an intelligible conversation can take place with the 911 services personnel is dependent on the quality of the broadband connection.
-
Voice Quality: The quality of a residential VoIP service is dependant on the network connection delivering the service. If the service provider owns the broadband connection then it is possible to prioritize voice packets to ensure voice quality. Most cable operators’ VoIP services do in fact protect voice traffic by giving it priority over data. Most other VoIP service providers do not have this capability and therefore voice quality can be severely affected by network congestion. Current trends suggest that bandwidth intensive applications such as video streaming and peer-to-peer file sharing will contribute to bandwidth shortages and likely VoIP quality issues.
I have been involved with VoIP technology since 1998 and I have consistently commented on its beneficial and disruptive impact on the communications industry. However, I believe more must be done to inform consumers of the potential risks. Once the risks are understood, consumers can make an intelligent decision about whether or not they should discontinue their primary line (traditional) voice service.
Note: As I have previously, I make the distinction between consumer VoIP services and enterprise-class IP Telephony. In the latter, all of the risks mentioned in this post can be adequately addressed and the implementers will typically understand the risks and how to mitigate them.
Rick McCharles
www.ric.ca
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