* A conversation with premise-based IP PBX supplier Fonality
Picking up where we left off last time on the topic of trends and advantages of convergence and VoIP, today we’ll highlight a recent discussion with Chris Lyman, CEO at Fonality. Fonality offers a premise-based IP PBX and has more than 1,000 IP-PBX systems deployed serving 15,000-plus business users.
Focused on the small business market, Lyman believes that using a VoIP-based appliance brings advantages when properly priced and supported with an emphasis on ease-of use. Fonality’s systems ship in two boxes for each location; one box contains a preconfigured server and the other contains preconfigured phones.
To increase the ease of use factor, Lyman says his company does “a ridiculous amount of testing” to make sure the small business owner doesn’t have to become a technical expert on VoIP. He also believes that smaller businesses aren’t ready to take on the challenges of the necessary upgrades to their “immature” LAN and WAN infrastructure required for a full-scale VoIP solution; therefore the IP-PBX targeted to these customers must account for potential LAN-WAN deficiencies when designing for ease of use.
When asked about the virtues of Internet-based telephone vs. a traditional connection, Lyman says he believes the Internet is fine for intra-company calls (saving the small business owner connection and toll charges) but that external calls are probably better off being routed to the traditional phone network to guarantee QoS.
Lyman also contends that a well-priced and easy-to-use IP PBX will better serve the small business owner than most hosted VoIP offers. He considers Covad a worthy competitor but says his sales are besting Covad deployments (based on the total disclosed “seat count”) even though the two companies target the same market. He maintains that price and ease-of-use are his advantages against the service provider-supplied VoIP solution.
Our summary: We have suggested that a premises-centric model has changed to a model in which communications applications, such as hosted voice and instant messaging, are integrated on a multi-purpose server rather than on a purpose-built PBX or application-specific hardware appliance. It looks like Lyman agrees about the trend towards a server-based PBX, but would not agree that the SMB market is always best served by a hosted solution.
Next time, we’ll hear a different perspective on the hosted vs. premises-based VoIP solution. If you’d like to weigh in on this observation, please let us know your thoughts by e-mail and we’ll publish your comments.
