VOICE TELEPHONY REMAINS the keystone of communications at most companies. Even after the increase in new and interesting communication methods, people still rely heavily on voice to conduct business. Companies, both large and small, are increasingly starting to look at the issues affecting their voice services and how to cut the cost of voice communications. <\/p>\n
Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) was widely heralded as the silver bullet that would save every company massive amounts on their telephone bills. However, that hasn’t always worked out as anticipated. <\/p>\n
Orion Telecom MD Jacques du Toit says many clients were led down the garden path about the potential of VoIP services. "Companies were promised massive savings from VoIP services but unscrupulous service providers often obtained those by skimping on the quality of the calls, leaving customers with poor phone connections. What we’re seeing now is that companies are realising that in order to find the balance between cost savings and voice quality there’s a need for them to pay more for the services they’re receiving." <\/p>\n
VoIP services work on the principle that it’s more cost effective to transport a voice conversation across a data link and then put it back on to a normal telephone systems closer to its intended destination. For local calls Telkom to Telkom line there’s no significant cost benefit using that technology. But for long-distance and calls overseas there are real savings to be had. <\/p>\n
For cellphone calls – now a large percentage of the cost of corporate phone bills – savings come from both bulk buying of minutes from cellular networks plus making sure the call goes on to the correct cellular network to receive the cheapest rate. If an entire company used VoIP then the system would ensure that the call stayed on the VoIP network from one side to the other, resulting in either a much cheaper call or sometimes a completely free call. <\/p>\n
Du Toit says the increase in bandwidth that should be available soon to SA companies will play a substantial part in improving the cost efficiencies of VoIP calls. "With potentially five network operators all servicing the same core areas the main differentiator will be price – and that will only be good news for clients." <\/p>\n
Huge Telecoms sales director Julian Morelis says part of a service provider’s role in the new dispensation will be to play the trusted adviser to telecoms users. "The key to success in this market is providing a value-added service and delivering what’s needed to the client." He adds that the range of current technology and options means clients see increasing value in being able to use a telecoms specialist to collate and manage the right solution for their businesses. <\/p>\n
The delivery of increased bandwidth through new network infrastructures is likely to be the key factor that pushes VoIP services into the mainstream and for those service providers with experience in working in that field the opportunities will be substantial. <\/p>\n
However, the risk is that the likes of Vodacom and MTN will take their considerable market presence and newly deployed backbone networks to deliver a converged solution to different market segments. Should that be the case the economies of scale from those operations could make life difficult for smaller companies trying to carve out a niche in SA’s telecoms sector. <\/p>\n
Finweek<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VoIP was widely heralded as the silver bullet that would save companies money<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecoms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}