VoIP realities

When VoIP burst onto the scene, it seemed like the answer to every network executive's prayers. Not only would it eliminate the pain associated with moves, adds and changes, but it also would provide great new features such as unified messaging and lead to savings by using the current data network.

Today, current VoIP users say the technology is ready for prime time and providing returns, but it isn't exactly network nirvana. VoIP can deliver cost and support savings, but there are trade-offs in terms of quality, reliability and ease of management. Nonetheless, if it's implemented with an eye toward mitigating those trade-offs, VoIP can deliver great benefits.

For the most part, early users moved to VoIP to cut costs and clean up older telecom infrastructures.

"We had a nice little mess that we affectionately referred to as our telecommunications quagmire," says Bill Ashton, director of IT for the town of Herndon, Va. The town had seven locations that each had a key system or PBX, but the switches were from multiple vendors, so transferring calls and supporting voice mail was difficult and support was costly. Plus, the main location with the town offices had outgrown its PBX, forcing IT to rely on a variety of stopgap measures.

"In some cases, we had to issue cell phones to new employees," Ashton says.

Fortunately, the town recently had put together a cable television franchise agreement with Cox Communications that required Cox to lay fiber between all the town's sites at cost. With the new network infrastructure in place, the town realized it could move to VoIP and solve the bulk of its telecom headaches.

The new VoIP solution, anchored by Cisco 3550 and 2950 Catalyst switches, not only lets the town communicate seamlessly among its various locations, but Ashton also estimates the town has garnered 30% net savings through the use of unified messaging and phone line consolidation.

Now everyone has unified messaging, which lets them receive voice mail and e-mail in one place. "I was sitting at the beach a couple of weeks ago, and I got on the phone, called into my voice mail box and had my e-mail read to me," Ashton says. Plus, the town has consolidated its outbound calling over PRI lines, which lets it eliminate more than 300 individual phone lines.

Others echo Herndon's experience. The Bakersfield Californian newspaper moved to Cisco-based VoIP because it wanted to upgrade its network to support digital production applications. At the same time, it needed to replace aging PBXs that dated from the 1970s.

"We have two locations, one with a super PBX and one with a mini PBX," says Mark Simons, systems manager at the paper. "The cost of buying two new PBXs was almost equal to the cost for the entire network project and [VoIP] stuff." Plus, with the move to VoIP, Simons says the company no longer needed the one staff member dedicated to voice and supporting the PBXs.

"For our ROI, we gave the VoIP setup a 10-year lifetime," Simons says. "And by eliminating that one position, we paid for the entire system over the 10 years. So now, any new savings we get from new applications or whatever is all bonus money on top."