Executive
Bulletin
COMPUTERWORLD
INTRODUCTION
All Roads Lead to IP .................................2
TRENDS &STRATEGIES
Wading Into IP Telephony ..........................4
Getting ROI From VoIP ..............................7
VoIP Monitoring Tools ............................10
VoIP Security .......................................13
Call Centers and IP ................................15
Voice Over Wireless LANs .......................18
RESOURCES
QuickStudy:Session Initiation Protocol ......21
Emerging Technology:..........................23
IP Videoconferencing
IPCommunications
Voice-over-IP is changing the way we think of,and manage,communications.
Compliments of
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 2
Converged IP networks allow for a wide variety of new applications to ride on the network and interact, including IP telephony,audioconfer- encing,videoconferencing,unified messaging and presence technolo- gies (like chat).
Getting Started
Corporate America is just starting down the road to voice-over-IP
(VoIP)communications,though
every analyst says it¡¯s just a matter of time before it becomes main- stream.¡°By 2009,the installed base of IP [communications]equipment will dominate the enterprise land- scape,but that¡¯s still a few years away,¡±says Robert Rosenberg,presi- dent of Insight Research Corp.in
Boonton,N.J.
There are several reasons why
VoIP hasn¡¯t been an overnight suc- cess.Companies started testing the waters of VoIP in 2001,but there were serious concerns about voice sound quality that slowed the mo- mentum (those concerns have been largely resolved).Moreover,one of the key reasons for implementing
VoIP was to reduce the long-distance charges associated with the tradi- tional phone networks,yet those charges have dropped so low that those cost savings are less dramatic.
The cost of IP phones is another reason for the slow pace.¡°The cost of going VoIP is certainly a factor here,since the price of newer IP phones will continue to be about
25%higher than the [traditional]al- ternative,¡±Rosenberg says.
¡°VoIP never was and never will be the least expensive way to deliver voice to the enterprise,but the al- lure of VoIP¡¯s rich applications like video telephony will slowly convert legacy customers,¡±he adds.
Indeed,there are a variety of rea- sons for moving to a converged IP network.Users report benefits such as the following:
¡öMuch lower costs for audiocon- ferencing. ¡öThe ease of moving,adding and changing phones.
¡öThe fact that the IT staff can manage a single network infrastruc- ture out of the data center,instead of two or more very different networks.
Thumbs Up
Early users are giving a thumbs up to converged networks,saying their technology choices have saved mon- ey and made their voice communi- cations setups more flexible.Some implement pure VoIP systems,while others rely on a hybrid of IP and cir- cuit-switched technologies.Either way,the users say they¡¯re realizing greater efficiencies just by starting to merge their voice and data net- works. IBM,for example,is rolling out a global VoIP network over the next five years that¡¯s expected to cut voice/data communications costs by
25%,according to Fred Spuleck,di- rector of global voice infrastructure at IBM.One efficiency will come from lowering the number of IBM¡¯s private branch exchange (PBX) switches from the current count of about 900 to just 11 IP-based PBXs,
Spuleck says.
Pure VoIP supporters say their systems are more resilient and can more easily support video or voice conferencing as well as new data ap- plications.For example,IBM¡¯s new
VoIP network will allow easy cre- ation of an audioconferencing sys- tem that will cut the company¡¯s an- nual costs for that capability in half,
Spuleck says.A VoIP project at
SouthTrust Bank in Birmingham,
Ala.,will save $1 million annually on conference calling alone and ¡°sever- al million dollars¡±overall,says Stan- ley Adams,the bank¡¯s group vice president of network services.
On the other hand,users of hybrid systems say they want to hold on to the value of large investments in time division mulitiplexing (TDM) switches,and they suggest that a hy- brid network would provide a back- up if a major virus or other security incident affected their data networks.
T
O CONSUMERS,IP telephony means making cheap long-distance phone calls over the Internet.But for corporate America,the convergence of voice,video and data on a single IP network is much more.It¡¯s a dramatic new way of thinking about,and managing,communi- cations,with voice traffic acting like any other packet on the network and telephones acting as just another network client.
All Roads Lead to IP
Components
Of VoIP
¡öCodecs (compression/decom- pression algorithms)
¡öTCP/IP and VoIP protocols
¡öIP telephony servers and PBXs
¡öVoIP gateways and routers
¡öIP phones and softphones
SOURCE:TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR VOIP
PROJECT,BY JOHN Q.WALKER AND
JEFFREY T.HICKS (CISCO PRESS,2004)
Introduction
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 3
GMAC Commercial Holding
Corp.in Horsham,Pa.,has adopted a hybrid approach that relies on older
TDM switches but also provides IP telephony capabilities configured on top of a Multiprotocol Label Switch- ing service to 106 locations globally, says CIO Niraj Patel.The annual costs should be 5%to 10%less than
GMAC Commercial Holding¡¯s previ- ous system,with last year¡¯s savings amounting to $120,000,he says.
But hybrid implementations are just a temporary phase in the evolu- tion of IP communications.Most new enterprise voice systems pur- chased over the next several years will be IP-based,according to ABI
Research in Oyster Bay,N.Y.The re- search firm says that by 2006,90% of all new IP phone systems shipped will be pure IP,not hybrids.
In most cases,corporate IT man- agers are opting to install VoIP in small pilot programs at branch of- fices or new locations.(Plus,PBXs generally have a seven-to 15-year life,so companies often wait until their PBX systems die before they move to VoIP.)
¡°The cost of IP [telephony]is jus- tified only when you start something new,not as a replacement,¡±says Geir
Ramleth,CIO at engineering and construction group Bechtel Corp.
Remaining Challenges
VoIP technology is still more diffi- cult to implement than the vendors would have you believe.IT man- agers¡¯top concerns include the fol- lowing: ¡öManagement tools.VoIP requires special tools and skills because voice traffic is far more sensitive than data to common problems such as dropped or delayed packets.
¡öReliability.When an employee picks up the phone ¡ª whether it¡¯¡¯s the CEO or a sales rep ¡ª he expects a dial tone.
¡öSecurity.Placing voice traffic on the IP network means that VoIP could be subject to the same sorts of security attacks that plague today¡¯s data networks.
This report provides advice ¡ª from your peers ¡ª about the costs and benefits of IP communications, as well as how to solve those man- agement and security issues.
Introduction
WHILE VOIP BECOMES MORE popu- lar,some IT managers are wrestling with the process of merging their histor- ically very separate voice and data com- munications staffs.¡°Every day I feel like firing somebody,¡±says a frustrated IT manager who works at a trucking and transportation conglomerate.She says an ongoing effort to blend voice and data staffs has led to frequent battles among workers over their roles in the combined unit.
But it can be done.¡°It¡¯s working out for us,¡±says David Stever,manager of communication technology services at
PPL Services Corp.,an energy utility in
Allentown,Pa.PPL started planning for voice and data convergence about six years ago,so it had time to sort through problems and plan carefully,he says.
Sixty employees who formerly were dedicated to either voice or data net- works now work together to handle all types of communications needs in three integrated groups:infrastructure and planning,application design,and opera- tions. Donald Van Doren,president of Van- guard Communications Corp.,a con- sulting firm in Morris Plains,N.J.,says the complexity of combining voice and data staffs is a big concern.¡°The her- itage of data and voice guys is just dif- ferent,¡±he says.¡°It¡¯s in the DNA.¡±
Van Doren says that an organization- al structure similar to PPL¡¯s is an effec- tive way to start,with staffers assigned to support the network infrastructure, applications or devices such as phones and PCs.
People Issues
Trends &Strategies
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 4
On the other hand,in 2001,when the Cancer Therapy &Research
Center consolidated facilities and expanded its headquarters in San
Antonio,the organization was work- ing from a clean sheet of paper ¡ª and opted for a pure IP setup from
Cisco Systems Inc.Chief Technolo- gy Officer Mike Luter says the net- work¡¯s speed and manageability, along with the ¡°increased mobility¡± enjoyed by physician end users, made pure-play the way to go.
Two Choices
These experiences neatly summa- rize the telephony choices IT organ- izations are making today.Legacy
PBXs are rapidly being supplanted by IP-enabled ¡°hybrids,¡±which ana- lysts say offer most of the advan- tages of pure IP systems (such as the ability to easily change exten- sions and to use a new generation of applications for activities like inven- tory management)while allowing companies to retain most of their existing infrastructures.But pure- play IP systems,unlike hybrids,let
IT organizations manage one net- work structure rather than two and are useful in small regional offices where it wouldn¡¯t make sense to in- stall a PBX.
Bottom line:Pure-play IP telepho- ny is gaining traction primarily (but not exclusively)with organizations that are undergoing other major changes ¡ª a headquarters move or consolidation,for example,or any major construction project that en- tails new cabling.
Hybrid PBX systems ¡ª tradition- - al PBXs that use special port cards to make IP telephone connections
¡ª are favored by businesses seeking most of the benefits of IP telephony without having to rip out their exist- ing voice network telephone sys- tems.The final choice for IT organi- zations is driven as much by exter- nal factors,such as moves and the addition of remote offices,as by the two systems¡¯benefits.
Pure Play
When the Cancer Therapy &Re- search Center consolidated its of- fices from three buildings into two and expanded its headquarters, where most of its 900 PCs and servers and 800 telephones reside,
Luter¡¯s team evaluated hybrid PBXs from Avaya Inc.and Nortel before settling on an IP telephony setup from Cisco.
Luter says Cisco was a ¡°premium environment,¡±but other factors off- set that expense.For starters,the center saved more than $58,000 by running a single wire for voice and data.Cisco¡¯s history as a data net- working vendor appealed to Luter because the center routinely trans- mits enormous medical imaging files between facilities.Another benefit is the simplified help desk structure that comes with a single data-and-voice network.
¡°We¡¯ve got Windows,Unix ma- chines and Macintoshes,so our help desk faces some pretty complex needs,¡±Luter says.¡°At least now we don¡¯t have one group for the phones and one for the computers;IT sup- ports everything.¡±He adds that get- ting phone extensions set up for new hires used to take up to two weeks but is now accomplished in less than a day.
Addressing one widespread con- cern about IP telephony,Luter says the center built redundancies for its phone system into its storage-area network (SAN).Each facility has a redundant pair of Cisco SN 5428
SAN servers.
Reliability Matters
Some analysts worry that redundan- cy and fail-over,which have been honed for 100 years in the switched- circuit world,haven¡¯t yet been suffi- ciently addressed in IP telephony systems.¡°By their very nature,basic
PBXs provide fail-over resiliency in the trunks going to the [telephone service provider¡¯s]central office,¡±
Wading Into IP
Telephony
D
AVID STEVER,manager of communication technolo- gy services at PPL,knows that IP telephony is the future.He also knows that his company (formerly known as Pennsylvania Power &Light)has a mas- sive investment in a traditional voice network.With 3,000 lines and a wiring infrastructure at its Allentown headquar- ters that Stever describes as ¡°challenging,¡±the utility selected an IP-enabled PBX telephone system from Nortel Networks
Ltd.when it decided to upgrade its network.¡°We needed to get our feet wet [with IP telephony],but we needed a proven, mature system,¡±he says.
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 5 says Laurie Gooding,an analyst at
Phoenix-based Synergy Research
Group.¡°An IP system doesn¡¯t pro- vide that.¡±
Gooding adds that ¡°some vendors have been slow¡±to provide redun- dancy in their IP signaling interfaces
¡ª that is,,the backup system that kicks in if a server goes down.
But NFL Films has used IP teleph- ony for its 450 phones since July
2001,and Steve Eager,director of network and systems administra- tion,believes he has planned for al- most any problem ¡ª with one possi- - ble exception.
The Mount Laurel,N.J.-based chronicler of professional football is on a Synchronous Optical Network
(Sonet)ring with separate fiber lines into each of its two connected buildings.For redundancy,each building gets a voice gateway,a Cis- co Catalyst 6509 switch and a Cisco
Call Manager Server (the servers are clustered). ¡°We¡¯re fully redundant,¡±Eager says,noting one exception:Each of the company¡¯s eight closet switches is homed to a single 6509 switch.¡°If we lost a closet switch,we¡¯d lose the phones at that closet,¡±he says, adding that this has never occurred.
Many analysts agree with Brian
Strachman,an analyst at In-
Stat/MDR in Scottsdale,Ariz.,who says,¡°The fear factor in IP telepho- ny is gone in the last year or so ¡ª they¡¯ve worked out most of the bugs.Whether you buy a [hybrid] system or a pure IP,you¡¯re safe in terms of redundancy.¡±
One advance in current hybrid
PBXs is peer-to-peer IP switching.
In early hybrids,voice-over-IP
(VOIP)communication involved translating from traditional voice time-division multiplexing (TDM) to IP,then back to TDM.This round trip introduced the possibility of poor voice quality due to latency.
Peer-to-peer IP connectivity is ¡°a cleaner way to accomplish VOIP,¡± says Jay Lassman,an analyst at Gart- ner Inc.
Vendor Pros and Cons
Some IT organizations opt for hy- brid PBXs over pure-play IP systems even when they¡¯re moving toward full IP telephony.Bow Valley Col- lege in Calgary,Alberta,implement- ed IP telephony in January 2002.
Shortly after sending out its request for proposals,the college narrowed its choices to Cisco,Nortel and Al- catel.IT manager Mike Shannon led a team that believed Nortel lacked a
¡°clear strategy¡±on IP telephony, leaving Paris-based Alcatel and Cis- co as finalists.
Misgivings over Cisco¡¯s experi-
Trends &Strategies
BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN &CO. recently completed a three-year project to install IP telephony systems at several of its U.S.offices.But the New York- based banking and investment manage- ment firm isn¡¯t moving away from circuit- switched call-routing technology alto- gether. BBH is using four of Alcatel SA¡¯s
OmniPCX Enterprise IP-PBX voice switches at offices in Boston,New York and Jersey City,N.J.Paris-based Alcatel wasn¡¯t well known in the U.S.when it was picked for the project in December
1999.But BBH officials preferred the
OmniPCX technology because it was less expensive than rival products and could handle voice communications in either a circuit-switched or IP-based mode,says
Paul Diamond,senior vice president of enterprise communications at BBH.
Telephone calls that can¡¯t be transmit- ted via BBH¡¯s IP network because of heavy data traffic are converted to circuit- switched routing by the Alcatel devices.
¡°It¡¯s a stable and sophisticated switch, and since we¡¯re a financial institution,we need dial tone consistently,¡±Diamond says. The telephony project cost BBH $2.5 million and affects the voice systems used by nearly 3,000 brokers and other financial services personnel.BBH did a phased rollout and has already saved
$200,000 in annual costs by eliminating voice-only network pipes and using its IP network to run core voice applications,
Diamond says.
Additional benefits include the ability to convert BBH¡¯s Alcatel 4035 digital phones to IP phones by adding an inex- pensive snap-on hub to the bottom of each device.That alone saved Diamond about $300 per phone compared with what it would have cost him to buy new ones from another vendor.
But Diamond is reluctant to roll out IP telephony capabilities to BBH offices worldwide because of a lack of open standards and the difficulty of getting products that the company has bought from different vendors to interoperate.
¡°I await with open arms the integration resolution,¡±he says.
Case Study:Brown Brothers Harriman
What¡¯s the
Difference?
What¡¯s the difference between
VoIP and IP telephony?
¡öVoIP places voice traffic on the IP network.
¡öIP telephony places voice clients and voice applications,as well as voice traffic,on the IP network.IP telephony allows phones to be directly connected to the IP network.A new type of phone,called the IP phone,is designed to connect to the
Ethernet switch on the IP network,much like any other device,such as a PC,laptop or network printer.
SOURCE:IP TELEPHONY UNVEILED,
BY KEVIN BROWN (CISCO PRESS,2004)
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 6 ence with voice networks prompted
Bow Valley to choose an Alcatel
OmniPCX system.¡°Cisco concerned us because they weren¡¯t voice- based;we weren¡¯t sure they under- stood voice enough,¡±Shannon says.
¡°And we weren¡¯t thrilled at the thought of running our voice over
Windows 2000 ¡ª we need five 9s reliability for our voice traffic.¡±
Shannon says the hybrid PBX of- fers the advantages of IP telephony
¡ª simplified management with Al- - catel¡¯s OmniVista network manage- ment tool,a single architecture and an automated move/add/change procedure ¡ª with flexibility not found in pure IP systems,such as the ability to run fax machines from analog ports.Like other newer hy- brid PBXs,OmniPCX supports ana- log,digital,IP,wireless and soft phones. Thomas Dunkerley,IT communi- cations manager at The Seattle
Times,concurs with Shannon¡¯s as- sessment of the trade-offs between a data-centric vendor like Cisco,
3Com Corp.or Sunnyvale,Calif.- based Shoreline Communications
Inc.on the one hand and a voice- centric vendor like Avaya,Nortel or
Siemens AG on the other.When the newspaper decided to replace its 10- year-old Avaya Definity PBX,it ex- plored Cisco¡¯s pure-play IP system and hybrid PBXs,and Avaya emerged as the leading hybrid can- didate. To Dunkerley and his team,all of whom had experience with telecom- munications,a drawback to the Cisco products soon became apparent.At
The Seattle Times,each phone in- cludes three call ¡°appearances,¡±or number listings.PBXs use a single port for each phone;with Cisco,each appearance would count as a port.
¡°That would have tripled my li- censes,¡±Dunkerley says.He adds that this anomaly is probably an ex- ample of Cisco¡¯s roots in the data world. Trade-offs
The newspaper opted for Avaya, partly because it was the only ven- dor whose products comply with
Americans With Disabilities Act guidelines (offering simultaneous audio and visual paging,for exam- ple),but Dunkerley says there were trade-offs involved.
¡°Avaya¡¯s not as focused on data as
Cisco is,¡±Dunkerley says,citing
Avaya¡¯s Cajun P330 switching sys- tem.¡°My network techs tell me the basics and functionality are all there but that the Cisco user interface is cleaner,making management a bit easier,¡±he says.The newspaper has moved 300 end users to IP phones, and 750 more are on tap for the next three months.
Enterprise telephony is moving toward IP;there is little doubt about that.The question is,Do you want to take one giant ¡ª but irreversible
¡ª step today,,scrap everything and go for pure-play IP?Or do you want to take baby steps and install a hy- brid PBX,bridging past to future?
For NFL Films¡¯Eager,the giant step worked.¡°You have your Windows guys doing PCs and servers,and your Cisco guy doing all your net- working ¡ª including phones,,¡±he says.¡°What¡¯s simpler than that?¡±
Trends &Strategies
FEDERAL AND STATE government officials are starting to weigh how to regulate VoIP services,and some cor- porate users are steeling themselves for what they think will be inevitable price increases.¡°You have to believe that if VoIP means the traditional phone system will lose volume,it¡¯s going to mean more taxes or fees on VoIP at some level,¡±says Mike Foster,manager of technology development at Tower
Travel Management Inc.in Oakbrook
Terrace,Ill.¡°But for now,we¡¯ll ride the
VoIP wave as long as we can.¡±
Tower,which provides corporate travel services,has installed IP-based voice systems for each of its 65 em- ployees.The company has 20 travel agents in home or small offices who make calls via IP telephony ¡°at greatly reduced costs,¡±Foster says.
VoIP service now is largely free of regulation,and that has helped to keep costs down for users like Foster.But the Federal Communications Commis- sion and state regulators have signaled their intent to examine whether VoIP should have many of the same fees and access charges imposed on regu- lar telephone networks.
Colleen Boothby,an attorney at
Levine,Blaszak,Block &Boothby LLP in Washington,represents large busi- nesses before the FCC.She agrees that regulators will be looking to reach into the deep pockets of companies.
¡°Every time regulations like this are considered,enterprises have a big tar- get painted on their chests,¡±Boothby says. Regulation Looming?
Nevertheless,users and analysts say that a return can be achieved ¡ª though it may require more careful planning,and the payback may take longer than first expected.Most an- alysts have pushed out the time it takes to gain a return on VoIP to an average of 19 months,compared with earlier estimates of less than a year.
Chicago-based Grant Thornton
Inc.,a global accounting and audit- ing firm,has set up a converged net- work in the U.S.featuring central- ized management,five-digit dialing for calls between offices and em- ployees,hub-based voice mail and unified messaging.With 51 offices and 2,800 employees nationwide,
¡°we really wanted our geographical- ly dispersed sales teams to be able to communicate more quickly and easily,enabling us to provide faster, more flexible service,¡±says Kevin
Lopez,national manager of telecom- munications at Grant Thornton.
Cutting Costs
Since the new network has been in place,Grant Thornton has cut com- munication costs by routing voice traffic over its wide-area network and eliminating toll charges.It has also reduced network management requirements and consolidated 28 stand-alone systems into four hubs
¡ª all without replacing its existing
PBX and digital phones.
The payoff ?Grant Thornton has saved $800,000 in its first year on intracompany long-distance toll charges and $160,000 on equipment lease payments,Lopez says.
The company had already imple- mented a wide-area data network based on frame-relay circuits and routers from Cisco Systems Inc., along with an Avaya Inc.PBX and 28
Octel Corp.voice messaging sys- tems.The firm added Avaya Cajun routers for VoIP when it consolidat- ed the systems into four primary hubs,to handle voice and data traf- fic.And to guarantee the quality of service,a permanent virtual voice circuit was provisioned for each of- fice location.
Grant Thornton selected Avaya to provide VoIP functions because the supplier was best able to leverage its existing PBX and digital phone investments,and because of an aggressive leasing plan that low- ered the firm¡¯s monthly costs,
Lopez says.
For Grant Thornton,the savings in administration and monthly re- curring costs were too great to ig- nore.Now,says Lopez,the company is looking to enhance the network so it¡¯s more robust and to improve visi- bility into the network by using spe- cialized systems management tools.
¡°And in the next year,we hope to boost bandwidth for audio-and videoconferencing,which will fur- ther reduce our costs,¡±he says.
Careful Planning
According to analysts and corporate customers,the key to achieving an
ROI on VoIP is to plan carefully.
Businesses should conduct an IT au- dit of their network infrastructures, including current data and voice traffic patterns.If users skip this step and don¡¯t know their current costs,they won¡¯t know whether the
VoIP migration has saved them money. Stephen Leaden,president of
Leaden Associates Inc.,a telecom- munications consultancy in Wash- ingtonville,N.Y.,says users seeking
Trends &Strategies
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 7
Getting ROI From VoIP
A
CHIEVING A SPEEDY RETURN ON INVESTMENT from voice-over-IP technology has proved difficult,in part because upfront costs can be high and tradi- tional long-distance phone charges have dropped in recent years.
It¡¯s also easy to forget to include some of the behind-the- scenes expenses involved in VoIP when calculating its ROI.
That¡¯s because so many companies have underestimated the complexity of running voice applications on corporate IP net- works.Adding voice requires that all elements of the corpo- rate network be tested ¡ª and in some cases replaced or up- - graded ¡ª for VoIP applications..Companies may even need additional staffing to manage the converged traffic on IP networks. It¡¯s best to go with ma- ture WAN-based
VoIP implementa- tions first,to gain a slow,steady,yet clear return.
STEPHEN LEADEN,PRESIDENT,
LEADEN ASSOCIATES INC.
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 8 an ROI from VoIP should start with the WAN,where you can ¡°expect
20%savings from Day 1.¡±That¡¯s be- cause VoIP capabilities are more mature in WAN products than they are in localized customer premises equipment and PBXs,he says.
A recent report by Gartner Inc. says that IP PBXs typically lack sev- eral of the richer features offered on circuit-switched PBXs.If IP PBXs of- fer only 90%of the features available on traditional PBXs,that will equal
100%user dissatisfaction,as well as trouble tickets that the IT help desk can¡¯t fix,according to Gartner.
Leaden advises VoIP users to dis- tinguish between their WAN and lo- cal PBX implementations.¡°These are separate,independent projects that need never merge.It¡¯s best to go with mature WAN-based VoIP im- plementations first,to gain a slow, steady,yet clear return,¡±he says.
ROI Strategies
Analysts say the best way to in- crease the ROI of voice/data net- works is to layer on various benefit- producing applications,including fax,audioconferencing and video- conferencing. For an even faster ROI,use VoIP as the wide-area transport mecha- nism between multiple internal lo- cations,because that reduces T1 costs and doesn¡¯t require the addi- tion of specialized digital phones.
Cutting T1 costs was the key at
Rye,N.Y.-based catalog retailer Lil- lian Vernon Corp.,for example.In late 2001,Lillian Vernon replaced an aging automated call distribution
(ACD)system with a VoIP-enabled multimedia contact center,reducing the number of T1 lines used from six to two.
That move saved the company
$100,000 during 2001¡¯s peak holiday sales season,says Ellis Admire,di- rector of MIS operations.¡°By con- verting voice calls from analog to digital signals,we can carry up to 72 calls on a single T1 line,vs.the pre- vious high of 24 simultaneous ana- log voice calls,¡±Admire says.
The eQueue multimedia contact center from eOn Communications
Corp.in Atlanta lets customer serv- ice representatives handle e-mail and Web contacts with the same ease as a phone call.Admire says eOn¡¯s VoIP-enabled ACD system was chosen because it uses open,
Linux-based technology that is up to date and reliable.¡°[EOn]was able to show us customer examples,while others,such as Aspect and Rock- well,weren¡¯t,¡±he says.
Besides monthly savings in T1 leasing fees,Admire says the added skills-based routing features,along with the ability to converge voice and data over T1 lines,make VoIP- enabled ACDs worth a close exami- nation.(Skills-based routing is used to route calls to customer represen- tatives with specific skills,such as the ability to speak Spanish or offer specialized support.)
One-Year Payback
H.B.Fuller Co.in St.Paul,Minn., expects a payback on its new VoIP deployment in about a year,says
Kevin Wetzel,manager of global network services at the manufactur- er of adhesives,sealants,coatings and paints.
VoIP technology finally proved reliable and sturdy enough for use this past summer,Wetzel says.The reliability comes from the addition of centralized processing,which re- duces the overhead of having multi- ple local processing locations and provides remote-site recoverability.
So if a WAN circuit fails,the calls can still be completed.
H.B.Fuller uses VoIP at 30 sites globally,incorporating about 3,500 digital phones.Most of the sites are in the U.S.,with the remainder scat- tered throughout Europe,South
America and the Asia-Pacific Rim, in places where the cost savings
Trends &Strategies
HERE ARE SOME TIPS from cus- tomers and analysts for a gentler mi- gration to voice-over-IP technology:
¡öConduct an audit of existing tech- nology.Include hardware vintage;ca- bling infrastructure,from the desktop to the closet to the backbone;the net- work architecture;redundancy,uninter- ruptible power and security require- ments;and policy management for multiple types of traffic.
¡öRecognize that voice trumps data.
Because voice quality must be high to persuade users to accept VoIP,data networking professionals must learn to accept that voice traffic must be priori- tized over data on corporate networks - a difficult cultural leap for some.
¡öDetermine bandwidth require- ments,and don¡¯t be greedy about compressing voice calls.Some suppli- ers hype 3-to-1 compression,but be satisfied with 2-to-1 or 2.5-to-1 in order to keep service quality high.
¡öUnderstand global government toll- bypass regulations.It may not be legal to offer five-digit dialing for internation- al calls to and from certain countries.
¡öIncrease network visibility.Use centralized,consolidated network management tools to manage per- formance. ¡öStick with a single VoIP provider.
That will help to avoid finger-pointing among vendors when performance problems erupt.Plus,integrating IP te- lephony products from multiple ven- dors is difficult,users say.
¡öKeep it open.Choose equipment that¡¯s interoperable,and support an open architecture environment.But beware:Some vendors claim that their products are open and interoperable when in fact they¡¯re not.So challenge them and get customer references upfront. VoIP Best Practices
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 9 were almost immediate,Wetzel says.
The network uses Cisco¡¯s CallMan- ager and other related call center and unified-messaging products.
The savings vary dramatically ¡ª from 20%to 80%¡ª depending on the application and the age of the analog phone systems replaced.But
Wetzel says the average savings de- livered by switching from traditional analog phone services to VoIP has been about 50%.
By the end of this year,H.B.Fuller hopes to expand the VoIP network to 41 locations in 30 countries.That will mean more toll-bypass savings
¡ª where international regulations permit ¡ª and will reduce travel and long-distance bills when employees use the internal audioconferencing capability. Over the next four years,Wetzel estimates that H.B.Fuller will save about $2 million because of its VoIP investment,thus proving that it¡¯s possible to achieve an ROI with this challenging technology.
Trends &Strategies
Now,using Avaya Inc.¡¯s Integrated
Management software,he can con- figure a softphone ¡ª an applet that lets a PC function as a telephone ¡ª place a call between any two points on the network and hear the voice quality while tracking network met- rics on screen.¡°It¡¯s almost like a speedometer,¡±says Lopez,national manager of telecommunications at
Grant Thornton Inc.,a global ac- counting and auditing firm in Chica- go with about 3,500 users on voice- over-IP systems.¡°[It]will show you in red,yellow and green where the call was in terms of lost packets,or any sort of error it encountered.¡±
The tool can also ¡°roll back¡±the speedometer to view and diagnose network conditions at the precise moment when a user says he was having trouble.
VoIP still requires special tools and skills because voice traffic is far more sensitive than data to common problems such as dropped or de- layed packets.But as tools for man- aging VoIP traffic have evolved,
Lopez and other VoIP managers have become increasingly confident that they can manage even large- scale deployments of voice commu- nications systems over converged voice/data networks.
Easier Troubleshooting
Looking back at what he was capa- ble of doing with the management tools that were available when he first deployed VoIP,Lopez says,
¡°Life is so much better.We can trou- bleshoot our own [problems]...and see exactly what¡¯s happening.¡±
Network managers say the place to start is with network components and management tools that support
Ethernet quality-of-service (QoS) standards for prioritizing voice traf- fic,and with management software that can do real-time,end-to-end monitoring of voice traffic across a
LAN or WAN.Administrators should also do upfront evaluations of their networks to ensure that they can handle VoIP and learn to watch for subtle problems that don¡¯t inter- fere with data applications but wreak havoc with voice quality.
Voice traffic isn¡¯t a bandwidth hog,but on a converged network it can fall victim to unexpected,short- lived congestion caused by,say,a user initiating a streaming video ap- plication.One key metric to track is propagation delay.A lag of only 50 milliseconds can create echo in a call,while delays greater than 250 milliseconds can cause one speaker to talk over the other.
Jitter,the variation in arrival times of voice packets that should all arrive at the same moment,is another problem.One way to reduce jitter is to store and hold early-arriving pack- ets until their slower counterparts arrive.However,making such ¡°jitter buffers¡±too large can itself increase delays in the processing of the voice packets,reducing voice quality.
Designers of VoIP networks need to do upfront assessments to be sure their networks can handle the de- mands of temperamental VoIP traf- fic.They should also pay close at- tention to network performance metrics that barely mattered in the more familiar world of data traffic.
But to do that,administrators need specialized tools.
Basic Requirements
The first requirement for any net- work management tool is that it must support QoS.Sean McRae, vice president and CIO at Pruden- tial Northwest Properties,a real es- tate firm in Portland,Ore.,uses Net- work Supervisor monitoring soft- ware from 3Com Corp.in Marlboro,
Mass.The software ¡°allows us to keep an eye on our WAN traffic be- tween all of our servers and routers¡± to ensure that voice packets get top priority,he says.
The second requirement is the ability to perform real-time traffic monitoring so administrators can troubleshoot short-lived problems that cripple voice quality.Another common and useful feature is the ability to see the condition of the network at the point in time when the user reported a problem.
Trends &Strategies
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 10
VoIP Monitoring Tools
K
EVIN LOPEZ began sending voice calls over his IP data network using a new IP telephony system two years ago,he had no way of monitoring voice traffic to maintain the quality of calls.¡°We didn¡¯t have any monitoring on the voice side,so we were totally reliant on our
[data]network counterparts,¡±he says.
Life is so much better.
We can trouble- shoot our own
[problems]...
and see exactly what¡¯s happening.
KEVIN LOPEZ,NATIONAL MANAGER OF
TELECOMMUNICATIONS,GRANT THORNTON INC.
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 11
Monitoring the Call Path
Network managers also need a tool that can monitor all of the network components along the call path that might affect voice quality.Lopez,for example,wants to see alerts not only for his IP private branch ex- changes,but also for switches or any other component that is failing or overloaded. Sources of management tools in- clude the vendors that make net- work components such as switches and routers,as well as the manufac- turers of IP telephony systems.For example,Nortel Networks Ltd.¡¯s Op- tivity Policy Services and Optivity
Network Management System pro- vide central management and con- trol of QoS across a network.
Third-party management software vendors also focus on VoIP manage- ment.Concord Communications
Inc.¡¯s eHealth Voice Quality Monitor assesses network readiness and monitors ongoing voice quality.The tools aren¡¯t cheap;a basic eHealth system starts at $6,000,and a more comprehensive package that man- ages QoS and the end-to-end net- work infrastructure starts at about
$150,000.
NetIQ Corp.¡¯s Vivinet Manager
Suite provides proactive network and system monitoring and auto- matic alerting.It provides integrated monitoring of IP telephony,unified messaging and video applications.
The suite also helps network admin- istrators determine if voice prob- lems are being caused at the hard- ware,operating system or applica- tion level.Pricing varies by cus- tomer environment,but a system ca- pable of managing a 100-phone Cis- co CallManager deployment costs about $6,000.
Another NetIQ application,the
$5,000 Vivinet Diagnostics,finds the source of voice quality problems, identifies the causes and prioritizes them,combining network discovery, synthetic transactions and monitor- ing of LANs,WANs and network de- vices. Interoperability
Problems
Because VoIP management is still a relatively immature area,manage- ment tools supplied by IP telephony system vendors such as Nortel,
Cisco Systems Inc.and Avaya work best with their own products,says
Robert Rosenberg,president of In- sight Research Corp.in Boonton,
N.J.And some management features may not work with gear from other vendors. That can be a problem because most customers use VoIP technolo- gy from a number of vendors,says
Darrell Epps,a technical assistance manager at NextiraOne LLC,a sys- tems integrator and managed serv- ice provider in Houston.However, he says,over the past 12 to 18 months several independent ven- dors of management software have made progress in producing soft- ware that can manage VoIP compo- nents from multiple vendors.They include NetIQ and Concord as well as Micromuse Inc.,which offers a system called Netcool for VoIP.
Some equipment vendors are also teaming up with third-party vendors to provide management tools that aren¡¯t tied to a single ven- dor.For example,Nortel includes
NetIQ¡¯s Vivinet Management as part of its Enterprise Network and
Service Management capabilities.
And the Visual UpTime Select per- formance management application from Visual Networks Operations
Inc.ships with Cisco¡¯s routers and can also be integrated with system and network management tools such as Hewlett-Packard Co.¡¯s
OpenView,says Naresh Kannan, director of product strategy at
Visual Networks.
Voice/Data Combos
And many VoIP tool vendors are working to combine VoIP functions with their data management prod- ucts,or with those from other ven- dors,in order to provide a single view of both voice and data traffic on the converged network.For ex- ample,Nortel is shipping IP phones that support real-time monitoring of voice calls and send alerts of prob- lems that could affect voice quality to the same applications that net- work managers use to monitor data traffic.This reduces the number of management consoles customers must buy and monitor ¡ª and makes it easier to find and fix problems.
McRae also uses his management software,Network Supervisor,to monitor both the data and voice side of his network.
Bruno Battochio,communica- tions specialist at Falconbridge Ltd., a Toronto-based mining company, uses a combination of Nortel¡¯s Op- tivity management software and a traditional packet analyzer to moni- tor the performance of IP phones linked to a Nortel Business Commu- nications Manager system in an un- derground mine.¡°We didn¡¯t mix and match equipment¡±from multi- ple vendors,Battochio says,adding that he wanted to avoid situations
Trends &Strategies
Six Ways to
Improve VoIP
Traffic
1
Assess your network to ensure that all components can handle both voice and data.
2
Put management tools in place before the first call is made. 3
Configure network QoS func- tions to give voice traffic top priority. 4
Manage voice and data using a common tool set.
5
Do real-time,end-to-end monitoring of voice quality.
6
Cross-train voice and data staffs so they understand each other¡¯s needs.
SOURCE:CONCORD COMMUNICATIONS INC.,
MARLBORO,MASS.
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 12 he has faced in the past where dif- ferent vendors blamed one another for a problem instead of fixing it.
Heal Thyself
Looking forward,vendors hope to provide ¡°self-healing¡±networks with tools that not only proactively find problems but also fix them au- tomatically.By 2005,Nortel hopes to be shipping a version of Optivity that can automatically solve voice quality problems by resetting a net- work port or redefining the QoS set- tings implemented on a switch,says
Clive Foreman,vice president of en- gineering for enterprise network and service management at Nortel in Brampton,Ontario.
John Montgomery wants manage- ment tools that can automatically reroute voice packets if a slowdown hits part of the network,something that he says is now ¡°a highly manual process.¡±Montgomery,vice presi- dent and chief technology officer at
Embarcadero Systems Corp.in
Alameda,Calif.,is about one quarter of the way through a plan to move
1,000 users to Cisco¡¯s IP telephony system.Although each upgrade of
CiscoWorks management software brings more features,he says proac- tive troubleshooting features have been slow to materialize.
Despite some limitations,most observers says today¡¯s VoIP manage- ment software is up to the task of managing large-scale VoIP deploy- ments ¡ª although it can cost any- - where from $25 to hundreds of dol- lars per user per year,depending on the number of users and the range of functions required,says Ronald F.
Gruia,an analyst at Frost &Sullivan
Ltd.in Toronto.
¡°The management tools we have today are designed for installations of tens of thousands,if not hundreds of thousands,of users¡±says McRae.
But choosing the right tool,and knowing how to use it,requires an understanding of the finicky new world of VoIP.
Trends &Strategies
SERVICE-LEVEL AGREEMENTS
(SLA)for VoIP should cover the follow- ing elements of call quality:
DELAY.VoIP traffic is intolerant of de- lay.Long delays can make phone calls sound like walkie-talkie conversations.
SLAs for delay are usually specified as a maximum allowable time,in millisec- onds,for packet delivery.
JITTER.Variations in packet arrival time can cause packets to be discard- ed and VoIP call quality to suffer.SLAs for jitter are usually specified in maxi- mum allowable milliseconds of variabil- ity in delays (among packets transmit- ted from the same source).
LOST PACKETS.If lost,VoIP packets aren¡¯t retransmitted.Lost packets thus result in missing syllables or words in a call.SLAs for lost packets are usually specified as a maximum allowable per- centage of all packets sent.
Service-Level Agreements
SOURCE:TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR VOIP PROJECT,BY JOHN Q.WALKER AND JEFFREY T.HICKS (CISCO PRESS,2004)
¡°With the convergence of the voice and data worlds,the real simi- larities of the security concerns will become apparent,¡±the SANS report says,urging users to take measures such as encrypting voice services, building redundancy into their VoIP networks,locking down their VoIP servers and performing regular se- curity audits.
Without a sharp focus on security as well,VoIP will never make it into corporate use,say users and ana- lysts. VoIP networks treat voice as an- other form of data but use sophisti- cated voice-compression algorithms to ensure optimal bandwidth utiliza- tion.As a result,VoIP networks are able to carry many more voice calls than traditional switched circuit networks. Voice As Data
Securing voice traffic on such net- works isn¡¯t very different from se- curing any data traffic on an IP net- work,says David Krauthamer,direc- tor of IT at Advanced Fibre Commu- nications Inc.(AFC),a Petaluma,
Calif.-based manufacturer of telecommunications equipment.
AFC is using limited VoIP commu- nications internally and may use it for external communications as well.¡°VoIP security needs to be handled in the overall context of data security,¡±Krauthamer says.
But there are some aspects of
VoIP networks that users need to pay close attention to,says Christo- pher Kemmerer,an analyst at Nex-
TiraOne Inc.,an integrator of voice and data networks in Houston.
In a VoIP world,PBXs are re- placed by server-based IP PBXs run- ning on Microsoft Corp.¡¯s Windows or a vendor¡¯s proprietary operating system.Such call management box- es,which are used both for serving up VoIP services and for logging call information,are susceptible to virus attacks and hackers.Break-ins of these servers could result in the loss or compromise of potentially sensi- tive data,Kemmerer says.
Consequently,it¡¯s important that such equipment is properly locked down,placed behind firewalls, patched against vulnerabilities and frequently monitored using intru- sion-detection systems,he says.
The University of Houston went one step further and made sure that its call manager and its entire VoIP network aren¡¯t directly accessible from the Internet.The school has put its IP PBXs in a different domain than its other servers and has limit- ed administration access to the servers. ¡°As a university,the potential for being hacked or coming under a de- nial-of-service attack is a huge con- cern for us,¡±says Charles Chambers, the university¡¯s manager of network planning and development.
Trouble at the Gateways
VoIP gateway technologies are also a potential weak point.When VoIP is used externally,gateway technolo- gies convert data packets from the
IP network into voice before send- ing them over a public switched telephone network.When VoIP is used internally,the gateways basi- cally route packetized voice data between the source and the destin- ation. The concern here is that such gateways can be hacked into by ma- licious attackers in order to make free telephone calls,Chambers says.
The trick to protecting against this lies in having strict access-control lists and making sure the gateway is configured in such a fashion that only the people on this list are per- mitted to make and receive VoIP calls,he says.
¡°We are mainly trying to make sure that the scope and access is re- stricted to a minimal number of people so that our exposure [to threats]is reduced,¡±Chambers says.
As with traditional telephony, eavesdropping is a concern for or-
Trends &Strategies
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 13
VoIP Security
C
ORPORATIONS that are implementing voice-over-IP technologies in a bid to cut communications costs shouldn¡¯t overlook the security risks that can crop up when the voice and data worlds converge.
A report from the Bethesda,Md.-based SANS Institute warns of privacy-and authentication-related issues stemming from VoIP services and urged users to apply the same precau- tions they¡¯ve used to protect their data services.
Chances
are,you are unlikely to get hacked.But once you do,you¡¯ll never forget it.
CHRISTOPHER KEMMERER,
ANALYST,NEXTIRAONE INC.
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 14 ganizations using VoIP ¡ª and the consequences can be greater,says
Charlie Rabie,a vice president at
Aspect Communications Corp.in
San Jose.Aspect is a provider of software and services for imple- menting VoIP,traditional telephony and other communication services.
Because voice travels in packets over the data network,hackers can use data-sniffing and other hacking tools to identify,modify,store and play back voice traffic traversing the network,Kemmerer says.
A hacker breaking into a VoIP data stream has access to a lot more calls than he would with traditional telephone tapping.As a result,¡°one of the big differences is that a hacker has a much higher probability of getting intelligent information¡±from tapping a VoIP data stream than from monitoring traditional phone systems,Rabie says.
Encryption Helps
Separating and isolating voice traffic onto a virtual LAN is one way of mitigating that risk,Kemmerer says.
So is encrypting VoIP traffic and running it over a virtual private net- work (VPN)when dealing with ex- ternal communications,Krauthamer says.Some of AFC¡¯s salespeople and remote workers use VoIP to commu- nicate with the head office.All of this communication takes place un- der the security of a VPN using mul- tiple encryption layers,Krauthamer says. It might be a good idea to encrypt
VoIP traffic flowing internally over a corporate network to prevent insid- er attacks,Rabie notes.
The use of desktop-based soft phones to make and receive VoIP- based telephone calls can also result in dangerous holes being punched into the corporate firewall that hackers could exploit,warns Kem- merer. Once again,the best way to ad- dress this problem is to restrict use through access lists and to ensure that all inbound VoIP traffic that flows through a corporate firewall is routed through a gateway server to eliminate a direct connection to the
Internet,he says.
VoIP security is a challenge that is
¡°inextricably linked¡±with issues such as interoperability with data networks and quality of service,says
Rabie.
But ultimately,it¡¯s important to remember that securing a VoIP in- frastructure involves nothing that is
¡°drastically different¡±from the measures corporations have always taken to protect their data,Kemmer- er says.
¡°Security issues relating to VoIP have only begun to surface over the last one year,¡±he says.¡°But this has to be a major consideration.
Chances are,you are unlikely to get hacked.But once you do,you¡¯ll nev- er forget it.¡±
Trends &Strategies
Tips for
Securing
VoIP Traffic
¡öEncrypt VoIP traffic and run it over a VPN.
¡öMake sure you¡¯ve properly con- figured your firewalls.Check to see if your networking and securi- ty vendors have support for Ses- sion Initiation Protocol and the In- ternational Telecommunication
Union¡¯s H.323 voice protocol.
¡öConsider segmenting voice and data traffic by using a virtual LAN.
This will limit the threat posed by packet-sniffing tools and minimize disruption in the event of an at- tack. ¡öThink about using proxy servers in front of corporate fire- walls to process incoming and outgoing voice data.
¡öMake sure that server-based IP
PBXs are locked down and pro- tected against viruses and denial- of-service attacks.
Call center managers cite several reasons for the expected transition, including the fact that it costs less to run one converged IP network than it does to run separate lines for voice and data,says McGee-Smith.
IP-based call center systems also support improved integration with
CRM systems and other business applications,facilitating the sharing of customer data.
Working from Home
But converged call centers have an- other big benefit.¡°The top driver of
IP call centers is that they allow re- mote connectivity,¡±says Katrina
Howell,an analyst at Frost &Sulli- van in New York.Indeed,call center agents can move to any location with a network jack to receive calls, whether at home or abroad.And since call routing can take place over the corporate WAN,toll charges are reduced,which can vastly lower costs.
McGee-Smith notes another virtue:Developers can modify IP- based call center software using open standards such as XML and
HTML,rather than having to learn a special language and use proprietary application programming interfaces.
The changeover to IP started about three years ago but has been limited to small and medium-size call centers,Howell says.Migrating to an IP-based installation is still too expensive for the big call centers, which can have as many as 10,000 agents processing credit card ac- counts or airline reservations,she says.One reason is that an IP-based call center system requires upgrad- ing the PBX or replacing it with a native IP telephony system.The big uptick should begin in 2005,Howell says,when many corporations will begin replacing the PBXs they in- stalled in 1999 to address Y2k issues.
Global Savings
Global adhesives manufacturer H.B.
Fuller Co.,which began adding IP- based call center technology in 2001, has realized more than $2 million in savings,says Kevin Wetzel,manager of global network services at the St.
Paul,Minn.-based company.IP te- lephony and call center servers in one location now service the needs of five call centers in St.Paul,each staffed with seven to 35 agents,over a corporate WAN.
With a traditional system,Wetzel says,he would have needed a
$500,000 PBX in each call center.In- stead,he uses data network switches and IP call management software, along with IP Contact Center soft- ware (now called IPCC Enterprise
Edition)from Cisco Systems Inc.
Although Wetzel won¡¯t say exact- ly what he spent overall,he does say the Cisco IP phones and server soft- ware alone cost less than $1 million.
Wetzel expects to realize more sav- ings as six European call centers move to IP telephony by the end of the year.All will be run from the St.
Paul-based contact center servers.
Weztel also expects savings be- cause he won¡¯t need a separate tele- phone line to each desktop.One
Ethernet cable will run to each Cis- co 7960 phone,which includes a second port to network the desktop.
H.B Fuller¡¯s long-distance calling costs for interoffice call routing have been completely wiped out,Wetzel says.In Latin America alone,he esti- mates that he has cut $100,000 in costs per year by avoiding toll calls back to St.Paul.
The system has also enhanced the way the call centers function,Wet- zel says.It¡¯s now possible to add functions such as agent call distribu- tion and computer/telephony inte- gration less expensively.One copy of the software can serve many call centers,whereas with the PBX- based system,each call center had to have its own copy.
Trends &Strategies
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 15
Call Centers and IP
W
ITH IP TELEPHONY just starting to gain a foothold in many organizations,it¡¯s not surprising that re- search firm McGee-Smith Analytics in
Pittstown,N.J.,estimates that just 1%of the
80,000 call centers in the U.S.today are using applications built to run over converged IP-based voice/data networks.
But within the next five years,analyst Sheila McGee-Smith and others expect 20%of organizations using call centers to be running IP-based call center systems,which offer features such as automated call distribution,contact management and computer/telephony integration.
The top driver of IP call centers is that they allow remote connectivity. KATRINA HOWELL,
ANALYST,FROST &SULLIVAN
Computerworld Executive Bulletin IP Communications 16
The agent distribution software has eliminated problems with dropped or incorrectly transferred calls,and Wetzel says staff and over- head costs are lower because he no longer has to manage telephone switches at each call center.¡°The IP component is undoubtedly making it economically feasible for us to in- stall new call centers,¡±he says.¡°In general,our ROI per location is about six months to get back the in- frastructure costs.¡±
Getting Personal
Restaurant equipment distributor
Franklin Machine Products Inc.
(FMP)in Marlton,N.J.,migrated its
35-agent call center to an IP-based system about a year ago.Bob Fisher, director of IT,says the system was an affordable way to handle the growth in call volume and still re- tain the human touch with cus- tomers.The call center had a man- date,issued by the company¡¯s presi- dent,that every customer be greeted by a live receptionist.
FMP chose an Avaya IP Office system from Avaya Inc.in Basking
Ridge,N.J.The system handles 1,500 calls per day,and calls that can¡¯t be routed immediately to the recep- tionist go to an automated attendant that lets customers choose to speak to another staff member,wait for the receptionist or leave a message.
At the time that Fisher selected
Avaya,the vendor offered the only product that could alternate between having a person answer or having the system answer.¡°All the others had the person answer all the calls or the system,but we wanted some- thing in the middle,¡±Fisher says.
It took FMP just one year to re- coup the $100,000 it spent on the new call center software,in part be- cause the company no longer loses calls when the receptionist can¡¯t an- swer them,Fisher says.Also,when agents are added or changes are made to the systems,maintenance costs are much lower than they once were.Other applications have helped with sales reporting,track- ing how many calls each agent re- ceives and how long agents spend on each call.
Ultimately,the move will help
FMP because its customers ¡ª restaurant managers who order equipment ¡ª are slowly becoming more computer-savvy.Fisher fore- sees the day when a restaurant own- er or manager will be able to access the FMP Web site and quickly estab- lish a chat session or voice conver- sation over the Internet.And if FMP opens a West Coast call center, hooking the two systems together would be ¡°no problem,¡±he says.
The biggest obstacle FMP over- came was getting sales personnel used to the new IP phones,which have more buttons and functions,
Fisher says.¡°It was a steep learning curve for a month,like replacing your favorite pair of old slippers,¡± he says.
India Comes to Seattle
Call center service provider vCus- tomer Corp.built its entire business on its Cisco-based IP telephony sys- tem,setting up the gear in its Seattle headquarters and hiring 1,800 Eng- lish-speaking agents to work in call centers in New Delhi,says Jeff Was- ierski,vice president of technology.
VCustomer¡¯s clients are U.S.-based retailers and computer companies that require a stable base of agents,in many cases with technical back- grounds,to handle customer service calls.The company also must be able to scale up quickly to handle the vast surge in calls that occur during sales increases around holidays.
The system allows vCustomer to quickly add dozens of seasonal agents,Wasierski says.Calls can be routed internally to its call center and tech support team in India with- out incurring toll charges.The com- pany can find qualified staffers in
India,where personnel costs are one-fourth what it would pay in the
U.S.,he adds.¡°We land our clients because of the cost of our service and keep them because of the quali-
Trends &Strategies
ONLINE AND PHONE travel-reserva- tion center Vegas.com has gone from zero to 1 million calls per quarter since its launch a little more than a year ago.
To accommodate t