Evaluation Criteria for Selecting Your Business VOIP Solution
By Neil Abramson
This article discusses the different types of business VoIP solutions, why business
may choose to migrate to VoIP service. It provides a list of evaluation criteria for
businesses to use in selecting the proper VoIP service for their needs. There is a list
of evaluation criteria that businesses can use to determine which VoIP Service
Provider will best meet their needs to achieve communications cost reductions and
improved productivity.
Introduction to VoIP Business Communications
Migrating your business communications to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
from the legacy Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) or PBX is a sound
business decision, now that VoIP has achieved acceptance as a mainstream
communications service. However, business VoIP solutions come in many varieties,
from VoIP call termination service to IP Centrex service. The primary motivation
for businesses to migrate their communications network infrastructure to VoIP
services comes from the ability to make much less expensive voice calls and
faxes. Deployed properly, business VoIP, whether implemented in small, medium,
or large organizations, can lead to improved productivity and increases in
profitability.
Types of Business VoIP Solutions
One solution for businesses looking to reduce their communications costs is
known as Voice over IP Call Termination through which a business could
potentially save up to 50% on calls as compared to the PSTN. This service uses
the public Internet or privately managed IP network to terminate your business
calls instead of the PSTN, thereby realizing substantial savings for you.
Another business communications replacement service is known as IP Centrex, or
Hosted Centrex service. This can be thought of as a virtual PBX replacement
service. The Service Provider you choose provides PBX-like features from their
"host" softswitch at their POP over your business' existing broadband
connection. You should determine which type of service best suits your business
needs as part of your business VoIP solution evaluation.
Evaluation Guidelines
Because of the increasing popularity of VoIP to reduce business communications
costs, there have been many recent Service Provider entries into the
marketplace. With the current proliferation of new providers, they are often
newly minted wholesale carrier Service Providers and individual resellers who
make very attractive price and quality claims that they cannot meet. This of
course will lead to your dissatisfaction with VoIP business service and a
negative outcome to your decision to switch. For these reasons, it is best to
create a "short list" of well-known, established and reliable VoIP Service Providers.
A reliable VoIP Service Provider would be any communications provider
who has a solid customer base, seasoned telecom management and engineers, with
2 or more years of reputable service experience.
Evaluation Criteria to Select Your Premier Business VoIP Service Provider
All well-established VoIP carriers in the market will claim to offer the best
VoIP business solution. So how do you choose who should be on your "short
list" and final choice to implement your VoIP solution? The following criteria
should all be considered when selecting the best business VoIP provider:
1. Voice Quality: A premier Service Provider will have multiple POPs (Point of
Presence) and softswitches, resulting in minimum latency (aka delay) and
allowing for faster connections. Minimizing delay and jitter (the short term
instability in the quality of a call) are 2 crucial parameters of providing high
quality VoIP voice and fax calls. Another critical parameter that should be used
to gauge voice quality is the Service Provider's MOS (Mean Opinion Score)
number. MOS Scoring is a subjective test of a call's quality originally
designed by the Bell Companies to quantify the quality of a voice call, with 1
being unacceptable and 5 being superlative. A typical range for Voice over IP
would be from 3.5 to 4.2 using a G.711 Codec. In contrast, a score of 2.8 to 3.2
is typically seen for cell phone calls. For your business VoIP service, you
should specify a minimum 4.0 MOS score from your potential provider, with a goal
of getting as close to 4.4 (which equates to PSTN "toll quality" network
service) as possible. Good voice quality is one crucial factor in your
evaluation that separates the average provider from the best.
2. Pricing: One of the most critical areas that probably attracted your business
to moving to VoIP service in the first place was to reduce its
telecommunications costs. Make sure to thoroughly understand the rate structure
of the various providers you have chosen to evaluate. Due to increasing
competition in the business VoIP space recently, rate can vary widely. All VoIP
networks are not created equally, and a provider's internal cost structure and
profit margin requirements can create a wide range of pricing structures. Also
be sure to negotiate discounts based on volume of calling, generally expressed
as MOU (Minutes of Use) that you plan to send to the Service Provider.
3. Network Integration: All businesses in operation today have an existing
telecom network to meet their various telecommunications needs. Migrating to
VoIP service should be a seamless and relatively painless transition for your
business. The VoIP Service Provider of your choice should be able to easily
integrate your existing service with VoIP so that your network operations are
minimally affected during the migration process.
4. Feature Richness: A wonderful aspect of both Voice over IP termination and
hosted IP services is the wide variety of value-added features they allow to be
offered. Call waiting, call forwarding, 3 way calling, speed calling,
pre-established teleconferencing, even video- conferencing (and many others) are
are available, usually at little or no cost, which will help achieve your goal
of increasing productivity. Choose the provider who offers you the features &
services that meet your business needs and will add value to your particular
organization.
5. Billing: All premier VoIP Service Providers should offer a real-time billing
capability with demonstrable expertise to exert proper control over the VoIP
minutes used by their large number of individual customers. CDRs (Call Detail
Records) should be available on every single call billed, allowing them to
optimize their network and you to ensure the rate structure you signed up for is
being charged accurately and consistently.
6. Trial Results: To verify the claims regarding the quality of the network,
your service, and user friendliness of features that will ultimately determine
your overall service satisfaction, you should always sign up for a live test
trial from the VoIP provider being evaluated. The trial should be no less than
48 hours, preferably longer. This will give you a good representation of the
services and features being offered. During the trial, be sure to get measures
of the ACD (Average Call Duration), ASR (Average Success Ratio), and PDD
(Post-Dial Delay) which also can be used to compare different providers' QoS
(Quality of Service).
Ultimately, you should choose the best business VoIP service for you and your
organization, based on the evaluation criteria, to attain a high level of
satisfaction with your new VoIP business service. In this way, you will achieve
the original goals for moving your business communications to VoIP of cost
reduction and productivity improvement.
Neil Abramson writes on telecommunications and technology related issues. You
can learn more by visiting my blog, Basics of VoIP at
http://basics-of-VoIP.blogspot.com
By Neil Abramson
This article discusses the different types of business VoIP solutions, why business
may choose to migrate to VoIP service. It provides a list of evaluation criteria for
businesses to use in selecting the proper VoIP service for their needs. There is a list
of evaluation criteria that businesses can use to determine which VoIP Service
Provider will best meet their needs to achieve communications cost reductions and
improved productivity.
Introduction to VoIP Business Communications
Migrating your business communications to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
from the legacy Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) or PBX is a sound
business decision, now that VoIP has achieved acceptance as a mainstream
communications service. However, business VoIP solutions come in many varieties,
from VoIP call termination service to IP Centrex service. The primary motivation
for businesses to migrate their communications network infrastructure to VoIP
services comes from the ability to make much less expensive voice calls and
faxes. Deployed properly, business VoIP, whether implemented in small, medium,
or large organizations, can lead to improved productivity and increases in
profitability.
Types of Business VoIP Solutions
One solution for businesses looking to reduce their communications costs is
known as Voice over IP Call Termination through which a business could
potentially save up to 50% on calls as compared to the PSTN. This service uses
the public Internet or privately managed IP network to terminate your business
calls instead of the PSTN, thereby realizing substantial savings for you.
Another business communications replacement service is known as IP Centrex, or
Hosted Centrex service. This can be thought of as a virtual PBX replacement
service. The Service Provider you choose provides PBX-like features from their
"host" softswitch at their POP over your business' existing broadband
connection. You should determine which type of service best suits your business
needs as part of your business VoIP solution evaluation.
Evaluation Guidelines
Because of the increasing popularity of VoIP to reduce business communications
costs, there have been many recent Service Provider entries into the
marketplace. With the current proliferation of new providers, they are often
newly minted wholesale carrier Service Providers and individual resellers who
make very attractive price and quality claims that they cannot meet. This of
course will lead to your dissatisfaction with VoIP business service and a
negative outcome to your decision to switch. For these reasons, it is best to
create a "short list" of well-known, established and reliable VoIP Service Providers.
A reliable VoIP Service Provider would be any communications provider
who has a solid customer base, seasoned telecom management and engineers, with
2 or more years of reputable service experience.
Evaluation Criteria to Select Your Premier Business VoIP Service Provider
All well-established VoIP carriers in the market will claim to offer the best
VoIP business solution. So how do you choose who should be on your "short
list" and final choice to implement your VoIP solution? The following criteria
should all be considered when selecting the best business VoIP provider:
1. Voice Quality: A premier Service Provider will have multiple POPs (Point of
Presence) and softswitches, resulting in minimum latency (aka delay) and
allowing for faster connections. Minimizing delay and jitter (the short term
instability in the quality of a call) are 2 crucial parameters of providing high
quality VoIP voice and fax calls. Another critical parameter that should be used
to gauge voice quality is the Service Provider's MOS (Mean Opinion Score)
number. MOS Scoring is a subjective test of a call's quality originally
designed by the Bell Companies to quantify the quality of a voice call, with 1
being unacceptable and 5 being superlative. A typical range for Voice over IP
would be from 3.5 to 4.2 using a G.711 Codec. In contrast, a score of 2.8 to 3.2
is typically seen for cell phone calls. For your business VoIP service, you
should specify a minimum 4.0 MOS score from your potential provider, with a goal
of getting as close to 4.4 (which equates to PSTN "toll quality" network
service) as possible. Good voice quality is one crucial factor in your
evaluation that separates the average provider from the best.
2. Pricing: One of the most critical areas that probably attracted your business
to moving to VoIP service in the first place was to reduce its
telecommunications costs. Make sure to thoroughly understand the rate structure
of the various providers you have chosen to evaluate. Due to increasing
competition in the business VoIP space recently, rate can vary widely. All VoIP
networks are not created equally, and a provider's internal cost structure and
profit margin requirements can create a wide range of pricing structures. Also
be sure to negotiate discounts based on volume of calling, generally expressed
as MOU (Minutes of Use) that you plan to send to the Service Provider.
3. Network Integration: All businesses in operation today have an existing
telecom network to meet their various telecommunications needs. Migrating to
VoIP service should be a seamless and relatively painless transition for your
business. The VoIP Service Provider of your choice should be able to easily
integrate your existing service with VoIP so that your network operations are
minimally affected during the migration process.
4. Feature Richness: A wonderful aspect of both Voice over IP termination and
hosted IP services is the wide variety of value-added features they allow to be
offered. Call waiting, call forwarding, 3 way calling, speed calling,
pre-established teleconferencing, even video- conferencing (and many others) are
are available, usually at little or no cost, which will help achieve your goal
of increasing productivity. Choose the provider who offers you the features &
services that meet your business needs and will add value to your particular
organization.
5. Billing: All premier VoIP Service Providers should offer a real-time billing
capability with demonstrable expertise to exert proper control over the VoIP
minutes used by their large number of individual customers. CDRs (Call Detail
Records) should be available on every single call billed, allowing them to
optimize their network and you to ensure the rate structure you signed up for is
being charged accurately and consistently.
6. Trial Results: To verify the claims regarding the quality of the network,
your service, and user friendliness of features that will ultimately determine
your overall service satisfaction, you should always sign up for a live test
trial from the VoIP provider being evaluated. The trial should be no less than
48 hours, preferably longer. This will give you a good representation of the
services and features being offered. During the trial, be sure to get measures
of the ACD (Average Call Duration), ASR (Average Success Ratio), and PDD
(Post-Dial Delay) which also can be used to compare different providers' QoS
(Quality of Service).
Ultimately, you should choose the best business VoIP service for you and your
organization, based on the evaluation criteria, to attain a high level of
satisfaction with your new VoIP business service. In this way, you will achieve
the original goals for moving your business communications to VoIP of cost
reduction and productivity improvement.
Neil Abramson writes on telecommunications and technology related issues. You
can learn more by visiting my blog, Basics of VoIP at
http://basics-of-VoIP.blogspot.com
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