May 12th, 2007
VoIP's "four obstacles" are listed and described
On our sister site TechRepublic, technology consultant Deb Shinder lists four obstacles to implementing VoIP.
The four obstacles are reliability concerns, network quality of service, complexity and confusion, and security.
Many of you may already be versed in the details for each of these issues. But just in case you are not, here's a brief summation of Deb's points:
Reliability Concerns- When the power goes out, VoIP may go out as well. Redundant Internet connections and power backup may help, but, uh, $$$.
Network Quality of Service- Packet loss, variations in delay (latency) resulting in inconsistent voice quality; packets arriving in non-sequential order. Deb makes the case for Quality of Service mechanisms, as well as VoIP monitoring and management solutions to help bring order and quality. Yet, she points out that the cost of these solutions can sometimes offset the phone cost savings that may have informed the migration of VoIP in the first place.
Complexity and Confusion- The jargon, some of which are VoIP-protocol related. She points out H.323, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol, with diagram at the top of this post) and IAX (InterAsterisk eXchange). Of course if you hire a consultant he or she will take some of that jargon unjangle away from your enterprise, and let your company do what it does best. But: con$ultant$.
Security-There are dreads, but encryption helps.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
