Internet, Email & Telephones > Email & Communication Services
Moving Your Office Phone System To The Cloud
Intermediate
By Tim Watkins-Idle
Voice over Internet (VoIP) phone calls can offer more flexible ways of working and save money. This article explains the stages involved in Lasa's move to VoIP.
Many large organisations have switched their telephone systems to the cloud in the last few years, using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology. There are major cost savings, with free calls to and from different sites within the organisation, and lower line rental. However, it is complex and, for smaller organisations without expertise, can be an intimidating step to take.
The good news is that for a medium-sized organisation, the technology (hosted VOIP - there is no need for a phone switch in the office) is now mature enough to work reliably and will almost certainly save a lot of money.
It is made more intimidating by the amount of jargon, and my experience is that telephone engineers are even worse about explaining things in plain English than computer engineers. There are some useful glossaries on the web including Cisco's.
Why move to the cloud?
Lasa had a telephone system which was using an ISDN line 30, but we were only using a small percentage of its capacity, and had to pay a significant line rental charge.
Other drivers for change included:
- some of our existing system was 20 years old. Toshiba had made it very well, but it had long exceeded its design life
- the system had not been supported by the manufacturer for many years
- we had a supplier who did support it, but at a cost
- any changes needed a technician to do some programming
- the system’s environmental credentials were very poor, as it needed an old PC to run voicemail, with the whole system using about 300 watts all day every day
What we wanted
We wanted to save money and energy with a new system, and were also interested in the ability to integrate calls between staff in the office and those outside. Rather less significantly, we were interested in the ability to click on a number on our computer screen, and make a call without having to dial the number.
Before actually doing anything we consulted with staff about what they wanted, and used this to inform decisions about what would help them achieve this. We also spent a lot of time looking at the technical options - there has been a lot of talk about VOIP for some years, but it’s a rapidly-evolving technology.
What we considered
A new conventional system would have been more expensive to install than VOIP, because of the need for a new internal switch - with hosted VOIP this is included in the line rental for a minimal fee. Handsets and installation costs are generally similar, as is the hassle and complexity of learning a new system, but a new conventional system would have much higher recurring costs.
Quality of service
Call quality is not guaranteed as with a conventional system. Because the call is routed through the internet rather than through dedicated telephone wiring, there is a greater potential for things to go wrong. In practice, however, the number of poor quality calls is said to be very small indeed, and that has been our experience. In some contexts, it may be that even a very small number of poor quality calls is not acceptable, but we decided that this was something we could live with, particularly given that with the increased use of mobile phones, some calls are of very low quality anyway.
To improve the odds in terms of call quality, there are two things which can be done. First is to use QoS (Quality of Service) technology in switches and routers. This prioritises data containing telephone calls above other sorts of data - very useful if colleagues are using YouTube or other streaming services, for example. The second is a dedicated broadband line for the VOIP traffic. One call uses about 80kb, both up as well as down. We considered that we had enough existing capacity to handle the additional traffic. It’s always possible to add more broadband capacity later, of course.
Failover
Resilience is a significant consideration. If there’s a power cut, all telephone switches fail, so there’s a good case for a keeping a basic handset somewhere in the office on a standard BT line. With VOIP, if the internet goes, then so do the phones, but internet connections are more reliable now than five years ago. We have two broadband lines with different suppliers, so that if one goes down we can use the other, although this is more complex than it sounds.
Copyright © 2011 Tim Watkins-Idle
