Why use an old landline to dial, when you can have VoIP?
Once the preserve of early adopters, VoIP is now a common form of voice delivery in the New Zealand workplace.
From corporate users with more than 5000 staff, to small business users with less than 50 workers – employers are reaping the rewards of cheaper calls and innovative services delivered via VoIP solutions.
Telecommunications Review looks at what's on offer in the local market.VoIP is probably the single biggest reason why the cost of voice communications is declining. That's good news for users, but not so great for telcos – although most are now embracing VoIP and are adding value to their IP solutions with sophisticated call routing, call recording and unified communication options.
Gartner research vice president Geoff Johnson says telco voice revenues in advanced western countries are in decline by around 10% per year due to VoIP (IP telephony and mobile alternatives), and the New Zealand market is no different.
By 2014 Gartner forecasts that 40% of knowledge workers will have abandoned the fixed deskphone and handset. "All the most interesting and useful communications will be going on via PC/laptop (webcam) and smartphones," Johnson says.
The shift to VoIP is inevitable, as Telecom switches from PSTN lines to IP networks in order to comply with its operational separation commitments, and as the government spearheads a move to ubiquitous fibre networks which will ensure that voice – along with data and video – is delivered over faster broadband connections."The ways that voice calls end up being carried as IP telephony are many and varied and subtle," explains Johnson.
"For example, businesses using Microsoft Communicator: while you are working in email, you can click-to-call someone from within the application and choose voice, video, or web conferencing, or share your desktop. All these tools use IP communications to carry voice and video."Once the heart of communications, voice is now simply a 'feature' or a 'service' in many IT applications. "Why dial?" asks Johnson.
Meanwhile, there's been a huge uptake in the use of smartphones and the question is being asked as to how long it will be before business users can do away with the deskphone altogether – that is, use only their mobile device whether they're in the office or on the road.Gen-i service line manager Steve McGinn says while an IP telephony network is critical, how voice is deployed is becoming neither here nor there.
"Soon we will no longer make a distinction between fixed or mobile, and we will not talk about unified or integrated communications – we will just talk about communications," says McGinn.
Of course Gen-i has a mobile network that it sells alongside its fixed line business. Other vendors point out that, while it's certainly possible, mobile solutions don't yet provide the raft of features that are available via a fixed line VoIP solution.Danny Tomsett from HiTech Solutions says that while some companies have removed deskphones all together, in his experience very few have had great success. Partly this is down to the high cost of cellphone services.
"Mobile VoIP, however is exciting and once mobile data performs reliably and pricing plans are acceptable, this will become a common offering in New Zealand," says Tomsett. "However, with the current duopoly here (2degrees doesn't factor in yet) you can be certain they will try to prevent this for as long as possible.
In addition, mobile may not have the same reliability, as Amtel Communications sales manager Ian McLean explains: "An important point to consider is the robustness of the mobile network that the mobile applications will be deployed over. The recent issues and troubles faced by customers on the XT network recently in this area only adds more reason not to put all your eggs into one basket when considering mobile integration.
However, the mobile market is maturing, with other technologies being considered by New Zealand telcos that could bridge the gap between fixed line and mobile. CallPlus' head of technology and product strategy, Matthew Clark, says the company is looking into the easiest way for customers to use SIP on their mobiles and how this works with WiFi SIP PBX.
"If they're within WiFi range of thie PBX, incoming calls go to their mobile phone using WiFi – no call forwarding to mobile costs. If they're out of WiFi range of their PBX, incoming calls can go the same mobile phone using the mobile network, ensuring the call always gets through," he says.