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Unified comms jam traffic
Unified communications is all the rage in telecom, so naturally there's a down side. That would be bandwidth consumption. Network General Corp., a San Jose, Calif., quality-of-service provider released a study this week demonstrating how unified comms will increase pressure on an already crowded information Super traffic jam.
The idea behind unified comms is simple: to fold voice, instant messaging, texting, email and other forms of electronic communications into one application. That way, road warriors can check fixed line voicemail via text from a mobile handset, for example. Several big players, including Microsoft, Cisco, Siemens and Verizon are busking the unified comms market, which is starting to take off as businesses adopt the necessary VoIP systems.
In a survey of 576 Network General customers, 75 percent estimated a quarter of their network traffic over the last three months consisted of unified comms. Nearly 40 percent said they'd had software problems after implementing unified comms, while 20 percent weren't as certain of the source of similar problems. Only 9 percent of those who responded said they didn't have a unified communications system. Key to successful deployments is adequate planning and a very agreeable IT administrator.
For more:
- The Network General summary of its survey is here
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | August 30, 2007 - 1:15pm
Unified COmmunications has been the rage since the FCC issues the telecom act of 96 - didnt take off then, hasnt taken off since, and will never take off!
Posted by annonymous | September 18, 2007 - 11:42am
Hello,
My name is Najla. I am new to this or any other kind of business. My brother used to be huge (close to a million dollars, not minutes, every month) in phone cards quite a few years back but he is now involved with other businesses. Recently an old contact of his made a very serious query about purchasing a couple of million pins terminating to Mexico (mostly off-net) every month (five minutes per pin given as promotions to their customers). The deal seems to be a cinch. It has also motivated him to get back into his phone cards (also targeting Mexico).
Only problem is that my brother is staying pretty hands off. So I am left to wade through this stuff on my own.
My dilemma and queries are listed below. Any and all help/suggestions/referrals will be greatly appreciated:
1.I can’t get a firm number as to what the direct/actual/marginal/variable cost a VOIP carrier incurs to terminate a call to off-net Mexico. My brother seems to think it is ZERO because he says they all use their own call centers in Mexico, route the calls originating from the US to their own call center in Mexico from where they transport the call as a local call or a data transmission and route it to the destination number thereby circumventing any termination costs to the local telco. He says even the big carriers do this or they sub their terminations to a VOIP carrier who does it for them.
On the other hand the sales reps at the couple of carriers I have spoken to seem to indicate that they have to pay termination costs to the local telco.
Can anyone shed some light on this and tell what the real story is and what would be a good rate per minute to off net Mexico, factoring in the massive volumes that we are talking about?
2.Can anyone suggest how and where to look for an experienced /knowledgeable telecom/VOIP consultant?
3.Any other general suggestions and guidelines?
Thanking you in anticipation,
Najla
Ps. Email to this address is welcome: mudarissa@yahoo.com
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