IP COMMUNICATIONS: CONSIDERATIONS AND BENEFITS

A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES FROM CISCO SYSTEMS AND SAGE RESEARCH

Alex Hadden-Boyd, Director, Cisco IP Communications Product and Technology Marketing

In today’s business environment work is no longer defined by a location; work is something

you do, not a place you go. The pace of work is faster, and the price of falling behind more

costly. Business agility—the ability to react quickly to both opportunities and road blocks—is

becoming just as important as sound business models and product differentiation.

To improve business agility, companies require their employees to be mobile, responsive,

and connected. They are expected to meet with customers, partners, and each other at

any time, with all the available resources at their disposal.

Many companies took their first step towards business agility with the deployment of an IP

data network, which dramatically improved the flow of information. Even with this advance

however, businesses tended to remain stationary because once away from the network,

accessibility and communication were ineffective. With the advent of IP communications once

unrealistic expectations of business agility and mobility are now reality. With an intelligent,

adaptive communications infrastructure your employees can go almost anywhere and remain

connected to the people, tools, and knowledge that provide the foundation of your business.

Think of IP communications as a new application running on your network. Although it

performs all of the functions of the traditional phone systems, it is no longer location-

based and through the flexibility of IP, can provide new applications that take full

advantage of the power of a packet-based network. Employees can move easily around

the company and-through secure remote access-anywhere in the world.

IP communications is a comprehensive system of powerful enterprise-class solutions

which include

• IP Telephony—provides the full array of telephony services users expect in a business

communications solution. It bridges IP communications protocols with the existing

time-division multiplexing (TDM) network. It enables you to use either the TDM

public network or managed IP networks to connect locations.

• Unified Messaging—delivers powerful messaging tools (e-mail, voice, and fax

messages sent to one inbox) and intelligent voice messaging over a single integrated

system

• Rich Media Collaboration—bringing video and high-quality audio together to make

conferencing as productive and natural as face-to-face meetings.

• IP Customer Contact (IPCC) solutions—delivers intelligent contact routing,

integrated interactive voice response, and multimedia contact management to contact

center agents over an IP network.

Enabled by an intelligent wired or wireless network, communication now extends to

wherever your employees are. Deployed as a comprehensive system, IP communications is

more than dial-tone replacement. The benefit is a dramatic improvement in operational

efficiencies, organizational productivity, and customer satisfaction. With the deployment of

IP communications you create a collaborative workforce, increase competitive advantage,

and deliver measurable ROI.

IP COMMUNICATIONS: IT’S MORE THAN JUST YOUR OLD TELEPHONE SYSTEM

Surprisingly, many businesses do not take advantage this full suite of tools, using the new

system solely as dial tone replacement. IP telephony is certainly a powerful application.

Over the past five years, companies have proven that the savings in toll charges,

maintenance, and support costs enabled by IP telephony are substantial. However, for

organizations whose traditional communications infrastructure lacks the flexibility to

meet today’s business needs, a shift to a comprehensive suite of IP communications

tools will enable them to harness the full power and flexibility of their IP network.

When Henry Ford first began showing his revolutionary Model-T to prospective

customers, he was consistently asked, “where do you connect the horses?” by people

who limited the applicability of the new technology to the boundaries of the system it

ultimately replaced. Those who saw the potential of the automobile knew instantly

what is was, and what it could mean for their businesses and the world at large.

In a competitive global marketplace, the difference between products, offerings, and

services are often indistinguishable between vendors. The emergence of a new business

requirement, such as agility, represents a disruption in the business continuum. In the

past, similar types of disruptions proved to be periods of large market share shifts,

upward for those who acted fast and ably, and downward for those who did not. In

the near term, an agile, well-connected work force can provide clear differentiation in

the market place. In the long term, all companies will increase their agility, once again

leveling the playing field until the next disruption. Those who harness the full capability

of IP communications today can dramatically increase their business agility, resilience,

and responsiveness and increase their likelihood to emerge as industry leaders.

Alex Hadden-Boyd, Director, Cisco IP Communications Product and Technology Marketing

For years the standard to which all communication systems were held was the classic “five nines” of availability.

This standard was based on the percentage of actual uptime (99.999%) as compared to the planned uptime of a

communications system (scheduled maintenance and upgrades are not counted). More of a reliability measure than

anything, the availability standard meant that over the course of a year, your phone system would have no more

than five minutes of unplanned down time. Within the “guarantee” of five nines were lots of caveats, but even so,

any new system was required to meet this baseline which presented a barrier to entry for any would-be newcomers.

In recent years, systems such as cellular and IP-based communications systems have proven that, when architected

correctly, they can achieve the same reliability of the traditional telephony systems. As previously mentioned though,

the “availability” measure is really more of a reliability measurement. When it first came into being, these two terms

were compatible because if a system was not reliable, then service (which back in the day meant dial tone) was not

available when and where you expected it to be. Today however the notion of availability has been radically altered

because of the way most professionals work.

Studies show that “knowledge workers” are really only at their office desk 40% of a typical work week and are

trending towards even less time there. This shift in how and where people work should change how businesses think

of availability. In the new model, availability should be strictly related to reliability, and a new term would be used to

measure the availably of a communications systems to a more mobile work force. One suggestion is the use of the

term “Practical Availability” which is the reliability or uptime of a system (which should be 99.999%) times the

percentage of time your employees have access to it.

If your work force is always at their desk then availability and practical availability are one and the same (99.999%).

However, if your employees fit the knowledge worker profile noted above, and you have a traditional TDM system

which only extends to the desktop, then your practical availability is 99.999% times 40% or 39.996% .

Given the new worker profile, the objective of both Operations and IT should be the deployment of a highly reliable

communications system that extends out to where the employees are at any given time. Correctly architected, an IP

Communications system rivals the five 9s of TDM, but unlike a traditional system it can also extend business-level

communication over WLAN and will support dual mode/system phones that extend the knowledge worker’s voice

access beyond the desktop, and then beyond the campus.

Added to that are communication applications and “presence” features that enable the network to intelligently

determine where the knowledge worker is and then, based on business models and personal preferences, deliver

the communication in the tool that is most appropriate for the location and situation of the worker.

The direction is clear that even for the truly mobile worker, the day will come where reliability (the old availability

measure) and practical availability will converge on five nines again. In the meantime you want to move toward a

system that has the best combination of reliability and practical availability for today, and high future potential of a

practical availability of 99.999%—a promise that only an IP-based communications system powered by an end-to-end

IP network can fulfill.

THE NEW AVAILABILITY MEASUREMENT

Alex Hadden-Boyd, Director, Cisco IP CommunicationsProduct and Technology Marketing

After years of being considered “bleeding edge” technology, IP

Communications has become more mainstream technology. With

blue chip companies such as Ford, Boeing and Bank of America

deploying IP Telephony (IPT), it’s safe to say that the era of IP

Communications is upon us. Even with the aggressive pricing of

traditional voice carriers that has nullified the once touted “toll

bypass” advantage of IPT, there are several real and measurable

benefits enjoyed by companies of all sizes that make the technical

migration. In the short term those companies that migrate early

will also get a jump on the competition by realizing business gains

from higher productivity and reduced support costs. However,

companies should pause to consider the readiness of their network

prior to deploying IP Communications, as all the advantages of

this technology can be quickly erased if placed on top of a

network that is not yet ready to support it.

The best way to learn if your network can support IP Communications

(IPC) is through a network readiness assessment. Such an

assessment can provide a very accurate picture of those areas of

your network that can handle IPC traffic today, those that need

some minor adjustments, and if necessary, those areas that must

be upgraded to be able to handle the IPC application. How

critical is this type of assessment? Since IPT became a viable

replacement technology for traditional systems, the majority of

the companies who deployed IPT and then later removed it cited

issues with their network as the problem, rather than the IPT

technology. Conversely, many of the companies that performed

a network readiness assessment found latent issues that would

likely have emerged with or without the additional voice traffic.

The assessment pointed out these areas that were easily fixed

before problems or network outages occurred. The value of

these assessments is analogous to the value of a routine health

exam that reveals an asymptomatic individual who is days away

from heart failure.

For those companies that have implemented IP Telephony

successfully, network assessments have proven to be a key factor

to the successful deployment of the technology. Introduction of

IP Communications as part of a new converged network requires

adequate bandwidth and prioritization for voice or video traffic,

as well as the resilient infrastructure to meet the demand of

high availability voice services. The infrastructure should also

be modular, hierarchical and consistent to promote consistency

and manageability. The IP telephony infrastructure assessment

addresses each of these areas to help ensure overall success.

This is accomplished by gathering the needed information

from network engineering and infrastructure groups.

A comprehensive network assessment should focus on the following:

• Network Design

• Network Infrastructure Services

• Network Links

• Hardware and Software inventory

• Power and Environment

• Network Baseline

• Project Implementation and Operations Foundation

• Telephony Component and Applications infrastructure

The benefits from such an assessment are best summed up as

peace of mind. If your network is ready then you can proceed

with an IP Communications deployment knowing that your

network will continue to operate efficiently and reliably. If

improvements or upgrades need to be made, the cost of such

upgrades can be factored into your ROI calculations, or the IPT

rollout can be staged in a way the mitigates any network impact

until the core network can be upgraded. Most importantly an

assessment can reveal any serious network issues that may be

lurking. While such information may seem daunting to consider,

problems are much easier to manage if discovered before causing

serious outages or lack of availability to critical information.

IP Communications can deliver on its promises, but only when it

is supported by a solid network foundation. You would not start

training for a marathon without a getting a physical and you

would not likely haul a camper cross country without first getting

your car inspected. The same logic should tell you not to deploy

IP Communications without first having your network assessed.

For more detail on network readiness assessments to

prepare for IP Communications deployments, visit

www.cisco.com/go/ipcservices

THE NETWORK MATTERS

Stephanie L. Carhee, Senior Project Manager, Cisco Systems

The migration of a TDM phone system to IP Communications is often viewed as a

technical project and a pretty difficult one at that. But as with any enterprise scale

project, the migration to IP Communications is as much about people as it is technology.

One of the first successful large scale migrations to IP Communications was completed

by Cisco Systems®, which deployed the technology they helped create. Stephanie

Carhee, now an IP Communications Implementation Advisor within the Central Sales

Organization at Cisco®, led the migration effort for Cisco and she has since published a

Cisco Press book (The Road to IP Telephony: How Cisco Systems Migrated from PBX

to IP Telephony— available at www.ciscopress.com) as well as a number of articles

on the topic. Following is a summary of her top ten tips for project managing an

enterprise-wide IP telephony migration and implementation.

Tip 1. Build a Cross-Functional TeamThe greatest up-front contributor to a successful, large technology migration is building

a cross-functional team that not only has the requisite skills and technical expertise but

represents users in every area in the organization impacted by the implementation.

Tip 2. Get Your Users On BoardResistance to change is normal and should always be anticipated. Managing user

expectations will be paramount to making the process run as smooth as possible.

Open, honest, and frequent communication and good training is critical.

Tip 3. Know Your Culture Does your company encourage risk taking? Is change incorporated often, and does the

company embrace it? How has change been introduced and institutionalized in the past?

Is new technology welcomed or resisted? Capitalize on what has worked in the past, and

learn from the mistakes of others.

Tip 4. Ensure That User Requirements Drive Design RequirementsConsider developing a “Voice of the Client” program that consists of client-targeted

surveys and focus groups to benchmark and track user-preferred services, products,

solutions, and features. User acceptance will be critical to your success. Provide training

and assistance in multiple formats (Web-based information, posters, a help desk,

frequently-asked questions handouts).

Tip 5. Crawl First, Walk Proudly, and Run AggressivelyYour implementation strategy should allow you to progressively go faster as your

experience levels become more efficient. You don’t want to go too fast or, conversely, too

slowly. Somewhere around the halfway point of the project, the have-nots will want to be

upgraded quickly.

SIMPLIFYING YOUR MIGRATION TO IP COMMUNICATIONS

Tip 6. Follow the 80/20 Rule for ImplementationA winning formula for migration success consists of 80 percent preparation and 20 percent

installation. Quite simply, if you focus on your plan first, the implementation will go a lot

more smoothly.

Tip 7. Ensure a Successful Day 2 HandoffA successful Day 2 handoff requires a well thought out support plan. Four critical

components are required to enable efficient operation and responsive support of your

converged network: the support team, support processes, support services, and support tools.

Tip 8. Keep Your New Network CleanMost large enterprises have hundreds of lines and circuits that, through the years, have

either been forgotten about or are simply unused. When the implementation team begins the

conversion to IP telephony, remove as many unused lines off the PBX as possible, and only

convert those lines that were proven as valid. Take steps to verify that business-critical lines

aren’t removed, and make it a point to only migrate what you use, rather than what you have.

Tip 9. Plan for PBX Lease ReturnsAt the time of implementation, you might have equipment that is leased. To ensure that the

massive effort of returning large quantities of leased equipment is organized and that items

are returned on schedule, the team leader should enter all PBX leases into a spreadsheet and

develop a project plan to keep the returns on track. All ancillary solutions and systems that

are tied to the main PBX should also be removed.

Tip 10. Look Back, Move Forward, and Prepare for the FutureWhether an IP telephony implementation involves 200 phones or 20,000 phones, careful and

comprehensive planning, communication, teamwork, and knowing where the challenges are

hiding will divert problems before they arise.

Migrating to IP Communications is no small task, so it is important to not make it more

complicated. Following the steps above can remove most, if not all, of the pain from the

process and help ensure a smooth migration for the implementation team and the end users.

IN SEARCH OF THE IP COMMUNICATIONS “KILLER APP”

Alex Hadden-Boyd, Director, Cisco IP CommunicationsProduct and Technology Marketing

One of the markers for the broad market adoption of a new

technology is the emergence of a “killer app.” Such an application

can transform a “solution looking for a problem” type of

technology into a genuinely useful business tool. The market has

been searching for the “killer app” for IP Communications for

some time, but so far there is nothing to indicate that one exists

and it is doubtful that one will emerge. The good news for those

in the IP Communications business is that a variation of the

“killer app” model, one called “lethal apps” is having the same

effect as a single hyper-usable application.

While everyone tends to look for a killer application, the reality is

that they rarely exist. In the last couple of decades, the only real

killer application that emerged was email for the Internet, and

even that is disputable as many claim the emergence of Web

browsers had as much impact on Internet technology as email did.

Much more common is a steady increase of focused applications

which by themselves solve the problems of only a select number

of companies, but as the number and availability of these targeted

applications grows, they collectively have the same impact as a

single killer application.

The focused application model tends to be a slower climb that the

“killer app” as there is a back and forth model between adoption

and application availability. The adoption rate of PDAs is a

perfect example. First there were a few users and only a few

application providers. More users attracted more applications

developers who then created more applications which attracted

more users and so on. At some point the market reaches a critical

mass, which causes a huge jump in both users and applications.

The IP Communications market is clearly following

the focused application model as the back and forth between

users and applications is starting to take form. General

applications such as calendaring tools, time clocks, weather alerts,

stock monitors, news/media streamers, meeting tools, and Amber

alerts are growing in popularity. In addition, the number of

industry-specific applications for retail, health care, education,

and financial industries continues to grow. One of the driving

forces behind application growth is the adoption of SIP (Session

Initiation Protocol) which is an open standard protocol that

enables different communication tools such IP phones, email

clients, chat tools, and meeting schedulers to “talk” to each

other, greatly enhancing the usefulness and intelligence of the

communications network. With SIP, an application running on

your IP Phone could help you set up a meeting now or some time

later, automatically dialing each participant at the their preferred

number and recording the meeting for those who can not attend.

SIP also enables you to dial someone by clicking a button after

the standard “u there?” check using an instant messenger client.

It’s hard to say when there will be enough of these focused

applications to reach “killer” status, but the industry is certainly

heading in that direction. Current projections estimate that R&D

funding of traditional TDM systems will completely end within

the next two to three years. It could be argued that that the

mortal blow has been already struck.

Kathryn Korostoff, President, Sage Research

Timing the deployment of a new technology is always a delicate

decision.

There is a fine line between waiting too long (and losing the

potential for competitive advantage) and not waiting long enough

(to make sure the risks are known and manageable).

Today, I see a lot of organizations struggling with the timing of

their IP telephony deployments. Often, I talk to people who have

a trial in place but have not yet gone “live.”

This seemingly endless trial phase is not due to low satisfaction

with early experiences. In fact, as one IT executive told me

recently, at his firm it is no longer a question of if they will fully

deploy an IP PBX—only of when. That’s a sentiment I hear often.

I think prolonged trials are a mistake. IPT is a technology that

delivers competitive advantage—so sooner is better. Through

several surveys of, and lots of anecdotal conversations with,

technology professionals with real IPT deployments, I hear

plenty of evidence that the investment is worthwhile.

Why?

With an IP PBX, people are actually using their phones for

something more than getting their voice from point A to B.

People are much more likely to use features that improve

collaboration, like conference calling and follow-me routing.

Maybe that sounds trite, but any telecom director at a large

company with a conventional PBX will tell you-most end-users

call for support for or avoid altogether any feature that requires

more than a two-keystroke combination.

Remote workers and teleworkers are more productive. Most IP

telephony solutions have options for making remote sites tie-in

seamlessly. Getting rid of the mix of KTS (key telephone systems)

and PBXs at remote sites and standardizing does save money.

IPT gives you better conferencing ability.

And yes, easier MACs (moves, adds and changes). This was

always touted as one of the reasons to adopt IP PBXs, and it is

true. I’ve talked to lots of people who report that now that they

have an IP PBX installed, they really do spend significantly less

time on moves, adds and changes.

Also in talking to IP PBX adopters, they have found by and large that

the objections once leading them to delay are no longer problems:

• Objection 1: Ability to scale. Current IP PBX customers are

widely satisfied that the systems they have deployed can scale

to support their needs.

• Objection 2: Voice quality. While early deployers (over two

years ago) often reported that improvement was needed,

today’s adopters widely report satisfaction with voice quality.

• Objection 3: Cost. Cost is always a concern when deploying

any new system-and IP PBXs are certainly no exception. Today:

Strategies to help manage these costs include the following:

– Handset trade-in programs. Most major vendors have some

kind of handset exchange programs so you can trade in

legacy PBX handsets, to help offset the cost of IP handsets.

– Soft phones. Soft phones-software applications that deliver

the functionality of conventional handsets (thereby allowing

PCs, laptops or even PDAs to act as a phone) have come a

long way in the past year or two. So if you haven’t evaluated

them lately, it would be worthwhile to take a look. Soft

phones may not be an option for all IP telephony end-users,

but even offering them to a subset of the end-user base can

alleviate costs.

• Objection 4: Learning curve for managing IP PBXs. For some

adopters, outsourcing is an option. Some IP PBX products

(through the manufacturers’ VARs or other partners) do offer

remote management. Some customers are using this as a short-

term strategy while their staff becomes more familiar with the

system themselves.

TOO SOON, TOO LATE, OR JUST RIGHT?TIMING IS EVERYTHING.

EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION: THE MOVE TO IP TELEPHONY

Kathryn Korostoff, President, Sage Research

I see many customers, when implementing IP Telephony (IPT), trying to decide whether to upgrade their existing circuit-

switched PBX or move directly to a new IP PBX. But why only go part-way when the ultimate plan is to implement a

pure IPT system? IP-enabling a legacy PBX still costs money.

Many customers prefer an evolutionary approach to a revolutionary approach, but recent research suggests this

might not be the best use of resources. Many organizations that start with a hybrid IP telephony approach end up

pursuing a pure IPT solution anyway. In talking with customers, I have found that many of them had timing, budget,

and other business constraints that made a hybrid approach the best choice for meeting the needs at hand. Most

had goals to fully migrate to a pure IPT system, but chose an interim hybrid step.

Why?

• Some customers were only at the point of evaluating IPT deployment in anticipation of moving to a pure IPT system.

• Other users chose hybrid PBX solutions to solve immediate problems.

• Many customers were limited by budget (not adequate for funding actual PBX replacement) or time (they had an

immediate problem to solve and did not have adequate time to fully evaluate all of the IPT options out there).

• Other customers had too much recently invested in the existing PBX to justify replacing it.

Fortunately, the hybrid IPT solutions delivered some benefits—and gave these customers the confidence they

needed to later migrate to a “pure” deployment. The benefits of the move to hybrid IPT included:

• Improved MAC—IPT adopters state that easier moves/adds/changes (MAC) enable end users to more readily

change workspaces and add new offices quickly.

• Enhanced Intra-Company Communication—Customers also report more call completions and an increase in

employee satisfaction due to more advanced services. These include better conferencing, “follow-me” features,

and unified messaging integration with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.

• Improved Remote Office Productivity—As a complement to better interoffice communications, customers also

realized the ability to cost-effectively extend advanced services to remote sites.

• Lower Support Costs—Customers also reported savings in support expenses such as training and travel.

Ultimately though, with much satisfaction, customers continued forward to realize the many additional benefits

of a pure IP PBX system, which they reported as including:

• Lower Staff Costs—Customers saved additional money through reduced support staffing.

• Reduced Carrier Costs—Since IPT implementations usually coincide with a customer’s new or extended VoIP

deployment, users realized additional savings in lowering recurring service providers’ fees.

• Reduced reliance on VARs—One participant reported that his company currently spends $13,000 a year with

their VAR for PBX support—a cost he expects to cut with the future IP PBX.

• Lower Equipment Costs—Due to a number of reasons including less expensive sparing and less expensive

maintenance contracts for the equipment.

This pattern of customers evolving from hybrid users to pure IP PBX raises the question; what will the next wave

of IPT adopters do? Will new IPT users start with a hybrid approach, or will they move directly to a pure IP PBX?

Given current adopter satisfaction and the many business benefits of a pure IPT approach, this pattern of IPT deployment

does seem likely to change. Further, now that there are so many customers with real deployments giving positive “word

of mouth” to their peers and colleagues, it seems that many customers are more comfortable making the move directly.

Chris Neal, Research Director, Sage Research

Thinking about putting voice over your enterprise wireless LAN network? You’re not

alone. In a survey Sage conducted with IT decision-makers at enterprises that currently

use Wireless LANs, 33 percent of the respondents said they planned to buy capabilities

to help support voice on their WLAN systems within the next 12 months.

Extending IP voice communications over a wireless LAN network creates new challenges

and risks for managing bandwidth allocation and the end-user experience during a voice

call. Having sufficient Wireless LAN coverage (signal strength) throughout your company

premises and adequate bandwidth is a starting requirement. You will need to do a

comprehensive audit of WLAN signal strength in all company areas where employees

might be using their handsets on the WLAN. Additionally, you may need to upgrade

from 802.11b to 802.11a, 802.11g, or multi-mode WLAN access points.

The next aspect to think through is what types of handsets you want to be able to use

for voice traffic on the network. Does your IP-Communications (IPC) system vendor

support handsets that can be used on a WLAN network at all and—if so—what Wireless

LAN standards (a/b/g) do these handsets support? The handsets that your IPC vendor

supports may also function better with certain types of WLAN access points.

Once you are sure your WLAN network has sufficient coverage and bandwidth and can

accommodate your IPC vendor’s wireless-capable handsets, the next step is adding QoS

capabilities (bandwidth partitioning) to your WLAN so that it can prioritize real-time

voice sessions over other types of traffic. The QoS and management portion of your

WLAN network will be critical to the quality of these phone calls.

Support QoS on your wireless network is an ongoing process. You may need to make

periodic adjustments based on actual traffic patterns and call quality when the system is in

production. To do this effectively, you will need effective monitoring software to identify and

isolate problems in voice calls at their source. Your monitoring system should encompass

both the landline and WLAN network, as call quality problems can occur at a variety of

different places across both of these networks. Extending voice calls onto your company’s

WLAN network can result in new sources of delay and jitter in IP voice calls, for example:

• Delays in hand-offs between wireless access points can result in gaps in the voice

packet stream, which creates a delay effect for the end-users having a conversation.

• Wireless LAN systems will occasionally shift their speed to adjust for changing demand

patterns. Many WLAN systems will queue packets waiting to traverse the node while

the access point speed adjusts. This can result in jitter during an IP voice session.

• If the wireless signal strength is weak, wireless LAN systems will increase the number

of re-transmissions, which can also result in jitter during an IP voice session.

The network monitoring system you use must be able to isolate the source of any

potential problems in voice calls so that you can trouble-shoot efficiently.

The benefits of extending your voice system onto a Wireless LAN network are immense.

Savings on mobile service bills, improved employee productivity, faster response times to

customers, single devices, and consolidated network management are just some of the

tangible benefits IT directors at enterprises I’ve spoken with have reported. It is a step

that makes sense for a lot of companies. A little bit of proper planning can go a long way

towards avoiding some of the more common deployment pitfalls.

CONSIDERING EXTENDING IP COMMUNICATIONS TO WI-FI

MANAGED IP COMMUNICATIONS:BUILDING A MORE FLEXIBLE PHONE

Kathryn Korostoff, President, Sage Research

When a child plays with Legos, if she wants to change the

structure she built, add to it, or even just change the colors,

it’s easy: all the pieces are right there, and the only limit is the

imagination. Unfortunately for enterprises, traditional phone

systems don’t work like that—they are frustratingly rigid. The

ability to change features is severely limited, and making any

major changes—such as expanding for new employees or adding

non-trivial features—can be costly and disruptive. Of course,

there has been an option around for years. You could subscribe to

a Centrex service, rather than owning your equipment outright.

The premise is simple: Centrex service delivers PBX features,

such as call transfer, call forward, conference calling, voice mail,

speed dial, and many more, without you having to own PBX

hardware and software.

The promise of service-based telephony holds obvious appeal, but

not that many organizations took advantage of it. Its limitations

(geographic coverage, painful change processes, price, etc.) made

it cost-effective for only a small percent of businesses.

But the IP revolution has come to Centrex—and Managed IP

Telephony promises to bring the flexibility and savings to an ever-

expanding group of potential customers.

Managed IPT Promises Managed IPT has 4 key attributes that are distinctive from

traditional Centrex services:

1. User interface. Imagine your employees initiating conference

calls by clicking on people in their contacts database. Or setting

up customized rules on how to handle their calls (for example:

all calls before noon go directly to my desk extension, after

noon they forward to my cell, etc.). Or even forwarding calls

from a graphical PC interface, rather than striking non-

intuitive key combinations on the handset? These are just a

few of the advanced features available with Managed IPT.

2. Geographic coverage. With a standard phone system, if you

had multiple sites but some were outside your local phone

company’s territory, you were out of luck. But with Managed

IPT, you can include remote company sites with high-speed

Internet access.

3. Self-provisioning. Web-based tools make it simple even for a

non-telecom guru to add users and change features, without

calling the phone service provider every time.

4. Price. The IP architecture reduces the number of dedicated

leased lines a carrier must use to provision Managed IPT

services to a customer compared with conventional, TDM-

based Centrex services. This has a direct effect on cost.

Managed IPT Availability? More to Come Managed IPT is not universally available yet, but most of the

major carriers have either deployed it or have announced plans.

Qwest, for example, has already deployed Managed IPT services

nationwide, and BellSouth has made its service available in the 9

Southeastern states it serves. Meanwhile, Sprint and AT&T have

each announced plans for services in the first half of 2005, while

Verizon plans to have a formal offering by the end of 2005.

As for current Managed IPT deployments—Sage discovered

through a recent survey that adoption is picking up. In a recent

survey of mid-size to large organizations using VPN or VoIP

services, we found that more than 10% are starting to use

Managed IPT.

As Managed IPT becomes more ubiquitous, it will pave the way

for more users to have a communications system as flexible and

changeable as a set of Legos.

For more information on Cisco Systems:

www.cisco.com

For more information on Cisco IP Communications solutions:

www.cisco.com/go/ipc

For more information on Sage Research:

www.sageresearch.com

Alex Hadden-Boyd, Director,

Cisco IP Communications Product and Technology Marketing

Alex Hadden-Boyd is the Cisco director responsible for product marketing of Cisco

Enterprise IP Telephony systems. Ms. Hadden-Boyd joined Cisco in 2000 after more

than 20 years experience in the telecommunications industry. During her career, Alex

was at Octel Communications for ten years holding a wide variety of senior roles in

product management and product marketing, culminating in her role as the Director

of Enterprise Messaging Products. Prior to that she spent more than eight years at

ROLM/IBM as a product manager for PBX and voice mail products. Alex spent two

years in two private companies, WarpSpeed and ThinkLink, as Director of Product

Management prior to joining Cisco. Ms. Hadden-Boyd has a B.A. in English Literature

from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts and an MBA from San Jose

State University.

Stephanie L. Carhee, Senior Project Manager, Cisco Systems

Stephanie L. Carhee is a senior project manager with the Cisco IP Communications

Services Marketing team and author of The Road to IP Telephony: How Cisco Systems

Migrated from PBX to IP Telephony available from Cisco Press at www.ciscopress.com.

Prior to her current role, Carhee was an IT project manager for voice services in the

Strategic Program Management group, and was team lead for Cisco’s migration to IP

telephony, the largest deployment of its kind in the industry to date.

Kathryn Korostoff, President of Sage Research, Inc.

Kathryn has been analyzing network-related technology and market trends for over

15 years. Her research studies have included IP Telephony, IP-based VPNs, mobile IP,

Service Level Agreements and wireless LANs. Since the mid-1980s, Kathryn has

published over 100 articles in leading publications. Prior to founding Sage in 1993,

Kathryn held market research and product management positions at NBI, International

Data Corporation and Motorola Codex. Kathryn holds a BA from Hampshire College

and an MBA from Boston University.

Chris Neal, Research Director, Sage Research, Inc.

Chris has nearly a decade of telecom and high-tech industry expertise as a market

researcher and industry analyst. He has managed domestic and multi-national projects

for equipment vendors, software vendors and service providers in areas such as

IPC/VoIP, wireless LAN, mobile applications, network security, storage, and broadband

services. He has also done extensive work in corporate software application markets

such as CAD/PLM and CRM. He is a Burke-certified focus group moderator. Fluent in

Spanish, he was previously director of the Latin America group at Pyramid Research.

Chris holds a BA in Economics from Occidental College and an M.A. in International

Economics and Latin American Studies from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

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