Give your workplace a voice over

Voice calls can be dialled with the click of the mouse. Picture / Brett Phibbs

If there's a buzz phrase around workplace telephony this year it is "voice over IP" or VoIP. But what's all the fuss about? What is it, and how does it deliver a better work environment and savings to those who invest in it?

Conceptually at least, VoIP is simple to understand. Instead of voice calls travelling around a business over a dedicated voice network, calls travel on the computer network.

The computer network uses the IP (or Internet Protocol), hence the term "voice over IP". So voice calls can travel on the same network as email, software application data, and print requests.

What this means for anyone using a VoIP network and IP devices is conveniences such as faxes being received by a computer and printed on a network printer, and voice calls dialled with the click of a mouse button from a PC.

Telephone applications such as those used in call centres can also be controlled from a computer desktop or remotely from a web page.

Technical types like to call VoIP "convergence" because while they are in the process of combining voice and data, they can throw in video for good measure.

Suddenly a business can make a video conference call, a phone call or send and receive data, from one device. Such devices are available, although it is still early days for voice, data and video convergence in New Zealand workplaces.

Getting voice and data networks converged, secure and working well takes skill and that means partnering with a VoIP specialist. It also means a significant investment.

However, while only larger organisations invest in VoIP networks at present, analysts and IT gurus believe that as traditional PABX systems begin to reach their use-by date, businesses of all sizes will incrementally invest in VoIP and convergence because they can save money on telephony costs.

A head office with regional and branch offices that can be served by VoIP extensions can save tens or hundreds of thousands on annual toll bills by running voice calls over the data network to the outer offices. Minor benefits of VoIP include the simplicity of managing, securing, administering and using one network for voice and data instead of two.

VoIP is not entirely beyond the financial reach of smaller businesses. Not only can you start small, telecommunication network providers, which have impressive VoIP networks of their own, allow small businesses to lease VoIP services over those networks. TelstraClear offers "Private Voice" and Telecom has "IP Centrex".

Last year, Mark Gordon a practice manager for telephony specialists Logical CSI, told i-start Magazine that businesses of all sizes could expect a return on investment from VoIP within six to 18 months.

"The real benefits are in the applications. If you have a contact centre which caters for multiple sites, then one operator can see the status of all branch office extensions from one desktop.

"And if a main call centre gets too busy or overloads, calls can automatically be re-routed to the correct branch or extension," says Gordon.

So VoIP could just as easily stand for Versatile and Open to Innovation by People.