Migrating to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Lorraine Kelleher of Spearline discusses migrating to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

The Growth of VoIP and SIP

The clock is counting down on the use of legacy global telephony infrastructure. Global Market Insights suggests that by 2025 the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) market will have grown to $55 billion from approximately $20 billion in 2018.

This prominent evolution has been spurred largely by three factors – firstly, the increased use of cloud services and personnel who are more experienced and comfortable operating in a virtual arena. Secondly, rapid advancements in the overall telecommunications space, and finally, the rise of remote working has been a key driver for VoIP.

It would be a significant challenge to install the necessary infrastructure in the homes of all remote workers, especially in the current environment. Therefore, VoIP allows employees to continue their work uninterrupted and successfully irrespective of the location provided they have a stable internet connection.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) acts as the signaller or ‘rule book’ for VoIP interactions and details how to locate the other party to the call. SIP also identifies which codec should be used to interpret the media packets that are being sent between the caller and the receiver in order to digitally convey the conversation.

Many individuals utilize VoIP on a daily basis unbeknownst to themselves, for example in online gaming or through video calling applications. However, in the case of business organizations, the move to VoIP is often a strategic one. It is estimated that savings could amount to 50% on ‘new’ telephone bills.

With hosted VoIP for businesses, expenditure on deployment can be equal to zero. All it requires is a capable internet connection as many providers offer softphone capabilities.

Migrations

When migrating from legacy voice systems to VoIP, companies must be cognizant of a number of factors. The IT team and the operations team who are responsible for telephony should work collaboratively to support the integration of the technology.

This step will be instrumental in ensuring a streamlined and optimized approach across the organization. VoIP migration will require a thoroughly detailed plan to ensure a smooth transition and minimal impacts on existing services.

Such a plan will also help to convince stakeholders and key decision-makers of the potential advantages of VoIP, especially when it is supported with concrete and compelling evidence such as case studies.

Organizations must also closely examine their existing network and its capabilities prior to the rollout of VoIP. A network assessment should be undertaken to ensure that the network is robust enough to operate at existing levels with the addition of projected data and voice traffic needs.

This appraisal should pinpoint any enhancements that are necessary to improve the network. There should also be built-in flexibility for fluctuations in traffic volumes; this could be done through load balancing to ensure that both standard and peak traffic volumes are adequately supported at all times.

Resultant Issues

It is important to note that a significant number of post-migration issues can occur if organizations are not adequately prepared for the transition and are not actively monitoring their respective situations.

In 2019, Spearline identified the most significant and recurring problems for businesses. This includes that 46% were experiencing issues with one-way audio and 40% were impacted by poor call quality through issues such as jitter, latency, clipping.

Conclusion

VoIP and SIP are set to become even more important in the near future; however, companies should consider testing and monitoring their new telephony systems to manage the migration and to avoid the potential pitfalls as shown above.

The benefits of Spearline’s platform are not only in monitoring your numbers, we can also help you to identify positive and negative effects of technology changes associated with those numbers.

This demonstrates the performance of the new and old system and its impact on your customer’s experience, for example in global contact centres.

Reduced phone bills and lower costs are a key advantage to organizations. However, if your customers are unable to hear you after an unsuccessful migration, there could be resultant far-reaching negative impacts. Proactive testing before and after migration can help to mitigate such risks.