Scott Nursten, Managing Director of s2s, has sent us this letter...

VoIP in the business world is greatly misunderstood. Part of this misconception is coming from free internet telephony systems such as Skype. As a consumer offering, and one provided by Ebay, Skype manages to grab the majority of the headlines yet it is not a professional or corporate VoIP system, and the business community must take care to make the distinction. Indeed, there is a wealth of difference between a unified communications system and free internet telephony and, by ignoring this difference companies are in danger of putting their professional image on the line.

This misunderstanding and misuse of corporate VoIP is rife, for instance, organisations are getting ready for VoIP internally by deploying virtual telephone exchanges and upgrading network infrastructure. The problem is, despite this ostensible foresight, there are currently no significant benefits. The only thing businesses have to show for their investment are fancier handsets and voicemails being delivered into email inboxes.

Also, what is often not considered, when moving to VoIP internally, is that the management of the telephone systems is swiftly moved into the remit of the often overstretched IT department. The result being that security for both voice and data systems can become compromised.

Despite all this, there are real benefits behind VoIP, and these are only starting to emerge now what is needed to make a multi-branch deployment of corporate VoIP a success is for organisations to already have existing WAN infrastructure in place. If this is the case then VoIP becomes another secure application that flows across the network, taking advantage of any available bandwidth on existing WAN links, and it is ultimately here where VoIP can offer organisations significant ROI.

[As I see it there are two main drivers justifying VoIP:

• security (encrypted phone calls, etc)
  
• cheaper bandwidth

Point-to-point encryption may be enough to justify installing VoIP internally in organisations in some cases, especially if communications otherwise travel across insecure or untrusted networks (and what can you trust these days? I'm considering buying a walking stick so that I can probe the firmness of the tarmac of a sidewalk before stepping on it).
The other driver answers the question: can you lower telephone costs by routing internal calls through a different route? This is becoming more doubtful by the day, as telephone companies switch to fixed rates, even for long-distance calls. The business sector trails the consumer sector in this respect but if you pressure your phone company there are deals to be had, at least here in the UK. The trick is to talk to the 'customer retention' section and squeeze. --Ed].

(Unfortunately no URL for further information was supplied in the letter).

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