Ted Wallingford of "The VoIP Weblog" has written a piece for O'Reilly Network on what enterprises ought to know when migrating to VoIP. It contains some good tips and is worth reading, but paints a bit rosier picture of enterprise benefits of VoIP than what I've seen in my own experiences. Costs for network upgrades, line power delivery capabilities & network performance management capabilities usually mean that implementing VoIP is more expensive than initially expected. In my conversations with large enterprises VoIP roll-outs invariably have difficult to cure performance problems that generate negative user experiences. These include anything from echo to noise to sudden call drops.
Enterprises ought to be aware that implementing VoIP isn't painless, but the opportunities presented by integrated IP communications such as presence and integration of voice with conferencing, instant messaging, and collaboration offer significant potential for productivity gains in the organization. Unfortunately these gains are difficult to quantify and as such, ROI calculations are difficult to establish.
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