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The Truth about VoIP
While cost savings appears to be the biggest carrot for VoIP adoption, other implementers say not to believe all you hear about rock-bottom prices. "This is not purely a money play," Hansen says. "Everyone talks about how much you'll save, but the telco vendors know the game better and are very savvy. Maintenance costs don't necessarily go down. Line fees don't necessarily go down. The handoff [of voice traffic] to the Internet may save some money, but not as much as you'd think."
The real benefit of VoIP, in his view, is the variety of extremely useful capabilities not available with hard-wired PBX systems. In particular, Hansen is a big fan of soft phone capabilities that let him use his laptop and cell phone to work with all the comforts of headquarters, no matter his actual location.
VoIP can also ease disaster recovery scenarios. "With a traditional PBX frame, a disaster means you're done until you can reroute and bring a new frame in," Hansen says. "You are tied to proprietary vendors. With the IP handoff, you can redirect things from here to there a lot faster and easier."
While cost savings might not be all they're cracked up to be, the same goes for VoIP security. Yankee Group's Kerravala says CIOs must remain rational, as opposed to hysterical, about security issues. "Much of VoIP in the enterprise is still in testing phases, and I'm not sure security issues come to the fore," he says. "In production environments, security has a role, but most VoIP is used for calls within their walls so you don't have to worry too much about long-distance spoofing. What they do have to worry about is availability of the system, and that's where you see activity around security."
He counsels clients of all sizes to focus on security basics across the network. "If you have good fundamental network security, you'll be fine."
Barbara Darrow is a Boston-area journalist. Write to her at editor@ciodecisions.com.
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