{"id":552528,"date":"2007-06-11T07:28:09","date_gmt":"2007-06-11T07:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/552528-saving-a-bundle-on-communication-2.html"},"modified":"2007-06-11T07:28:09","modified_gmt":"2007-06-11T07:28:09","slug":"saving-a-bundle-on-communication-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/552528-saving-a-bundle-on-communication-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Saving a bundle on communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

Companies stand to make significant savings on their telephony costs by using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. Some experts place cost savings on international calls at between 30% and 50%, on calls to cellphones at 50% and on national and local calls at 10% . <\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are massive cost savings to be had,\u201d said Jacques du Toit, managing director of Orion Telecoms.<\/font><\/p>\n

For SA businesses, the number of telecom s options available are opening up gradually. Voice calls can be routed over data networks using VoIP, over the cellular networks and over Telkom and Neotel\u2019s fixed-line networks.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, a company using its own data network to route voice traffic between several branches would pay just 17c a minute using VoIP as opposed to 63c a minute using the usual fixed- line network,\u201d said Du Toit.<\/font><\/p>\n

But, said Brendan van Staaden, chief executive of Interactive Technologies, there are costs involved in setting up VoIP networks.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not convinced that VoIP networks are that much cheaper than fixed line options initially because there is a substantial cost to setting up network infrastructure. That said, over the long- term, there is no doubt that VoIP is more cost effective,\u201d he said.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other advantages too. VoIP networks are easy to maintain because there\u2019s no separation of data and voice infrastructure. You don\u2019t need to double-up on the skills needed to keep them running efficiently.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the most important benefits of VoIP are the reporting tools that are available \u2014 important in the call centre environment, for example. Management has access to detailed performance data and can track the performance of the network,\u201d said Van Staaden.<\/font><\/p>\n

In developed economies, VoIP service providers can choose to buy their bandwidth from several networks which tends to drive down costs.<\/font><\/p>\n

Orion Telecom\u2019s Du Toit said bandwidth still had to be purchased from Telkom until 2011. \u201cThe only other way to bypass Telkom\u2019s network is to make use of WiMAX wireless networks that Internet service providers [ISPs] are rolling out. We believe that this will gain critical mass over time.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n

Tim Wyatt-Gunning, joint chief executive of Storm Voice and Data, an ISP, said VoIP technology is now bedded down and a growing number of businesses and consumers are using it to route voice calls.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cEven bigger companies are starting to tap into the technology that has so far been mainly the preserve of smaller businesses,\u201d he said.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cMany smaller companies don\u2019t have the financial muscle to install their own VoIP infrastructure so they outsource these services to third party organisations which already have and manage VoIP networks.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

On closed networks, such as Storm\u2019s, voice traffic that remains on their network between customers is free.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a pretty compelling model for many companies looking to reduce their telecommunications bill,\u201d said Wyatt-Gunning.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cFor big companies the savings can run into the millions.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

However, there is a threshold to making VoIP cost-effective. A data line needed to run a VoIP network costs about R9000 a month so economies of scale are important. <\/font><\/p>\n

One of the great VoIP success stories is Skype which consumers enjoy because they can effectively make free calls to other Skype users providing they have a broadband connection like ADSL.<\/font><\/p>\n

But call quality varies because ADSL is what\u2019s known as a contended, or shared, service \u2014 the more people who use it, the less reliable it is.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s great, sometimes it\u2019s not. That\u2019s fine if you\u2019re chatting to family and friends all over the country or the world, but for business, a more reliable, dedicated VoIP service is the way to go,\u201d said Wyatt-Gunning.<\/font><\/p>\n

He added that about 10% of calls originate on VoIP networks and that the rate is growing quickly.<\/font><\/p>\n

One of the problems that has plagued data networks has been security and VoIP is also prone to risk.<\/font><\/p>\n

Said Ollie Whitehouse, a security expert at Symantec: \u201cWhile early incarnations of VoIP were plagued by intermittent service, muddled and dropped calls, over the past few years VoIP services have improved enough to make them sufficiently reliable and stable for business use.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Comments<\/a><\/p>\n

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VoIP technology can be the right choice for businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552528"}],"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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}