16 Novembe r /Decembe r 2005

What it is

VOICE OVER IP (VOIP) means the delivery of voice informationover the Internet. Voice signals are moved as digital signals

in ‘packets’ instead of using the traditional circuit-switched proto-cols in the public-switched telephone network.Voice signals piggy-back with data, visual and other signals through a single network.Common operative phrases include ‘convergence’ and ‘consolida-tion’ with the delivery of all these signals through a single network– wired or wireless. Thus, a communications network becomesa seamless integration of telecommunications services.

VoIP benefits• Lower cost: Converging to a single managed IP (Internet pro-

tocol) infrastructure saves money in installation and repairs.Installing a telephone to a new office means never having tocall a telephone technician, set up a service appointment andchange an extension number. There are no long distancecharges. Mississauga, for example, estimates an annual sav-ing of $700,000 a year after integrating all telephone systemsinto the city’s high-speed broadband network. Hamilton ex-pects to save more than $8 million over five-years.“Money isimportant but it’s a mistake to assume that the reason whymunicipalities move to VoIP – strictly for lower cost,” saysLouis Shallal, director of Information Technology Servicesfor the Regional Municipality of York. He led Hamilton througha similar technology change. Nortel Networks estimates oper-ational savings from 10 to 30 percent by converging telephoneservices onto an IP infrastructure.

• Moves, adds and changes (MACs): Staff have more controlover where they can be reached especially when offices areshifted from one location to another. This is especially criticalwhen the move is across the city or from one floor to another.The computer jack essentially becomes a telephone jack. Thetelephone number stays the same and travels with the employ-ee. An IP phone can reconfigure itself and calls are automat-ically routed to the phone extension, regardless of where it isplugged in on the network. Response time for MACS isreduced to a few days or even a few hours.

• Consistent dial plan: This is important for organizations spreadover several campuses where long-distance exchanges betweenlocations could be seen under a traditional public telephonesystem. The system is less confusing: staff can connect with

one another by dialing a simple four-digit extension number;customers can call a single number. The system enables onlineemployee directories and services such as consistent voicemessaging.

• Unified dialing: Legacy PBX and other infrastructures en-meshed with newer wireless or wired infrastructures are partic-ularly evident in departments, ministries or municipalities thatinherit equipment and systems following integration with unitsin other departments and ministries. Deploying IP telephonyover a single network eliminates the tangle of varied systems.

• Emergency: Certain enhanced emergency services can auto-matically provide the location of a phone on the network toemergency services, helping emergency fire and police dis-patchers direct the exact location of an emergency response.

• A blended Web-voice network: With both voice and Web capa-bility available at the same time, new applications and oppor-tunities exist for quickly delivering customer information.

• Call centre extension: IP telephony enables virtually any em-ployee to be enlisted for call centre support during high-de-mand periods.

IT maturityMany factors go into making the decision to move to IP tele-

phony. Jack Lawrence, director of Information Policy for Missis-sauga, explains how the city is run like a business and contin-uously examines new technologies. “We always are looking outthere to see what’s going on, to sit back and see if what you’redoing today is the right thing. It could be VoIP. We’re still lookingto see what the new advances are. It’s what we build into ourdaily regimen.”

Other issues include political awareness, technical capabilityand maturity of an organization.“Each organization has its ownpriorities and business environment,” says Shallal at York.“Some-times IT is a central entity. Sometimes it is very decentralizedand has a limited role.” One of the main drivers in implementingIP telephony is the readiness of an organization to put in placean extensive broadband network.

Another key push came in the aftermath 9/11, the terroristmove on New York. “Since 9/11, governments are more securityconscious at deploying secure networks,” says Dan Young, vicepresident, Industry Solutions & Services Marketing for Nortel.Security. Enhancement is not built into the telephone technologyitself, however. Security is extended from the core infrastructurethrough the primary firewall and layered in a defence system builtthroughout the network. Security in IP telephony is integratedwith network security.

Quality of Service (QoS) becomes a critical issue in reducingchoppy signals, particularly with voice. Increasingly, QoS tech-nology is being devised to eliminate voice transmission problemsand give preference to voice traffic.

Varied solutionsA new $130 million Royal Ottawa Hospital is expected to open

by the end of next year. Few government and hospital enter-prises are in a position to build a new system from scratch. The400,000 square foot building will be the first Canadian hospital

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VoIPbuyers’ insider

Novembe r /Decembe r 2005 17

embedded with a complete wireless infrastructure built fromthe ground up. Nortel Networks is installing an IP telephony sys-tem to replace the patchwork system in place now. Vendors andtheir partners provide a host of options running the gamut fromvirtual overhaul with pure IP to slow migration using a hybrid sys-tem depending on cost, requirement and broadband availability.

Vancouver, for example, currently relies on 50 percent opticalfibre, with a mix of slow-speed dial-up, DSL and other Internetservices making up the rest of its network infrastructure. Untilthe network infrastructure is in place, Martin Crocker, managerof IT policy for the city, expects to see gradual conversion to VoIPbeginning in 2006 with the bulk of conversion implemented by2007. Both Bell Canada and Telus have service offerings thatallow gradual migration to IP.

In other public enterprises, particularly the municipalities,choices vary according to the size of operating versus capitalbudgets. Several approaches include lease-to-buy, pay-as-you-goand full purchase.

Cisco Systems Canada, for instance, has already installed IPtelephony systems in about two dozen municipalities.“On aver-age, we are seeing most of our customers deploy what we can onan operating-lease, [based on] a flexible mid-to-long term operat-ing stream of capital where the technology can be rotated underit,” says Brantz Myers, director of Enterprise and Voice Marketingat Cisco. “Like a utility, as the technology changes, we can keepthe technology fresh. Some customers will have a traunch of ex-pense capital but they won’t have much operating capital. They’llhave money in the bank but not much monthly money so theywill buy outright.”

Even those options include another range of choices for instal-lation and support.“We can plan, deploy, implement and operatedepending on the customer’s preference,” says Myers.

A customer may choose to operate the system or any of theso-called ‘channel partners’ can step in. The vendor can providebreak-fix support, and may be better equipped in some circum-stances to handle updates to deal with security challenges.

Mississauga, which made the switch to VoIP in 2003, purchasedthe technology from Cisco for $3.2 million. Mississauga staff hadto deal with 2,000 telephones snarled within 40 different keysystems and payments of $1.3 million to Bell Canada every yearto maintain their outdated system. Today, the city has 2,400 IPphones and 14 call centres in 72 locations integrated into a singlecalling system.

Hamilton also chose to purchase its own gear, again from Cisco,and added a seven-year maintenance contract. York Region, incontrast, opted for an entire outsourced arrangement throughmanaged services. The vendor owns the assets and charges amonthly fee.York assembled a critically written service agreementthat included a high level of performance. York wanted 99.99percent availability of the network with virtually no down timefor either data or voice.

Training and retrainingWith construction of the new hospital in Ottawa, Nortel and

Royal Ottawa Hospital officials sanctioned an early pilot programto begin testing the new technology and training employee staff

at the same time. The technology changes will be sweeping be-cause an entirely new network infrastructure is being installed.Nortel was quick to point out that the culture shock for the esti-mated 800 or so staff learning to handle an entirely new systemwould be dramatic. The transition plan, involving training andtesting, got under way with staff in September 2005, more than ayear before the completion of the new building.

Both Hamilton and Mississauga conducted training exercisesas their new IP phone systems were being set up.“This is a newtechnology and it is important to do an amount of training andretraining,” says Shallal, who was involved in the Hamilton projectbefore moving to York. Hamilton bought its own technology andIT staff were more hands-on in helping devise the IT solutions.“We were going to end up with a new system and we needed tosupport it, so we needed to know how.We just can’t call the vendoreach time there is an issue. It is advisable to do an implemen-tation and transition plan. Make sure it’s a component with thelearning exercise and transfer of knowledge happening at thesame time rather treating it as an after-thought.”

This means establishing routines for maintenance, monitoringthe capability of the network, reporting and troubleshooting.“There are a lot of things at stake in managing a network thatextends many kilometres,” Shallal adds.

Choosing a vendorWhen Mississauga officials decided to replace an outdated

telephone system, understanding the technology and choosing avendor went hand-in-hand. The city put its own market researchteam together comprised of employees with the technical andbusiness background to understand the technology and its impli-cations. The team sat down with several vendors to learn about thetechnology and to conduct a thorough overview of the industry.By the time Mississauga was ready to create an RFP, it was ableto detail its infrastructure, capabilities and requirements. “Wewere looking for some creative proposals that would be equal toor better than the current facility we already had,” says NormBaxter, the city’s IP project manager.“We asked them the state ofthe art, the direction of telephony from a manufacturing per-spective – not necessarily from a provider’s perspective, but get-ting down to the root of where the technology was coming from– and then provide us with their overview of where the industrywas going.”In making the change, Mississauga became the largestCanadian municipality at the time to adopt IP telephony.

Large vendors are suited to providing enterprise level solutionsand work in partnership with a range of suppliers and serviceproviders. These include: Cisco Systems Canada, Bell Canada, Nor-tel Networks, Telus Corp., and Allstream (formerly AT&T Canada)

What’s next?The promise of new applications will bring the next wave of

change with Internet telephony. Young at Nortel says, “Takingadvantage of video over mobile devices, video to your desktop –what you will see evolving is a tremendous outburst of appli-cations – things that we can’t even imagine today.”

Marlene Orton is a freelance writer based in the Ottawa area.

by Marlene Orton