Reality Check VoIP Unified Messaging.

[NARSBARS]

I have several PBXs, 30 BCMs, 75 Norstars. Every location is on a private WAN with bandwith and nearly no latency or congestion.

I love my toys but the real question I get asked is "What use is VoIP and unified messaging?"
I hear, we have phones, email and faxes. We have DID everywhere. What makes a "clunky interface" unified messaging client worth using? Why use VoIP? Long distance is cheap.

Remember we probably pay some of the lowest trunking costs in our area (New England). We run T-1s to two man garages in the boonies.

Does anyone have any hard dollars and cents arguements for both VoIP and especially unified messaging?

NARSBARS

 

[subx]

Thats a good question and hard to argument... but u always have to view the sight of customer....
For some customers its much cheaper to switch to voip than to reinstall cabeling of a building. Also a customer with intranet and many sites could save a lot if he has still spare capacity on his network. Its not an add on solution right now cause traditonal phone lines went cheap... But guess why?!? The pressure just get too much for phone companies... Also many provider offer right now direct VoIP Lines to public network.... its just a matter of time when data and voice will be once.. so its the future even u dont need it right now... but customers ask for it.. like on mobile phones... mobile phones have cam and mp3 sounds today... they cost much more than traditional ones... no real new features that u need for calls... but accepted and everybody want them....
The same about Unified Messaging.. of course u can fax with a traditional fax... U can call your mailbox... but as the name said... u have all complete in your Outlook... Mails, Voice Messages and Faxes... everybody has a own Fax number.. It always depend on the business of the customer... what he need and how the work flow is setted up... u cant give generaly arguments.. u have to study each customer on a personal view and than u can sometimes find a matter ;O)

I guess 80% of companies who did already install VoIP and Unified Messaging dont really need it for now. But they have some freaks who were able to fell the desicion about money Nobody need to drive a Ferrari (and its not the fastest car!) but maybe u have fun on driving it ;O)

 

[biv343]

Good question. Here are my two (or three) cents.

VOIP (trunk side) can be a money saver in some environments if there is an existing WAN, extra bandwidth and enough call volume between the sites to justify the initial investment. It needs to be considered up front whether the initial investment in PBX equipment, network infrastructure, etc can be cost justified in the world of 3 cent a minute long distance. Figure an up front cost of $10000 for the gear (might be high, might not), and that buys somewhere around 5000+ hours of LD. If the volume is there, and the data circuit is already paid for, then you might see a payback in a couple years. But, if you haven't done your due diligence on the network, you might find that your users never use the VOIP because the quality they expect isn't there.

VOIP line side (phones), in my opinion, fall into the "cool to have" category, like subx mentioned about the cell phones with MP3 players, cameras and what not. There are some advantages to having an IP phone, such as hot desking/virtual office, ease of MAC if users change locations and so on. The question is, do people use the feature enough to justify the extra up front cost of an i2004 and an IP client license versus a 7316?

I install and service both IP and TDM. IP is good provided the infrastructure exists to make it successful. There are however too many deployments of IP that run on an inferior network infrastructure. An IP phone is only as good as the network it is plugged in to. The nice thing about digital sets is as long as the phone switch has power and the mice haven't eaten the wiring, then my phone most likely will work.

Unified Messaging is handy for faxes and viewing messages. If I know there is a message in my VM from Joe Blow, I can look in the client and click on it to play it rather than listen through the messages in my voicemail. While it's not a necessity, it can make life easier for folks that are in the office on a regular basis.

 

[NARSBARS]

Thanks for all the answers. Voice mail for TDM sold itself,
picking up a handset and making a call is not going away soon. I guess if I had a huge call center, that would be the killer application to bring VoIP on board.
I had a totally key coded BCM with licenses for EVERYTHING,sitting on a shelf and basically donated it to one of our small departments. Three months after the installation and after sending a trainer twice, they still have no real use for any of the "gee whiz" features, they make phone calls. How am I going to deploy my toys?

The first person to solve the 911 issue and\or come up with something unique for VoIP is going to get rich.

NARSBARS