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Pipex VOIP for Business (VoIP)

VoIP - cost-effective and secure communication - Do you want to gain tighter control over the cost of your business communications, without compromising on quality of service or security? And do you want to enhance the way your business uses the telephone and email to talk to customers, suppliers and employees? PIPEX's VOIP for Business gives you the power to do all of this - and much more.

PIPEX Commitment to Quality

The PIPEX Commitment to Quality is evident in the engineering of the VOIP for Business service. When you share a connection between voice and data, you save money, but unless you engineer it correctly, you will have poor quality when you are online.

'With voice calls, voice transmission has to happen in real-time, and it can be difficult to guarantee this if there is too much traffic on the network. If voice data takes too long to arrive, it can result in a stuttering effect, where words get cut in half and syllables get lost - and this will not be acceptable to users.'

Department of Trade and Industry VOIP Paper

The VOIP for Business service uses unique Quality of Service coding that reserves bandwidth at the WAN gateway for Telephone calls, and maintains call quality during data downloads. This bandwidth is only reserved for the period of the call and is released for use by other applications after the call is concluded. Extensive testing by PIPEX has shown that during normal network conditions, the service delivers 5 concurrent calls each with an average Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of 3.5, which compares to mobile calls which typically range from 3.0 to 3.5.

Maintaining Voice Quality During Data Downloads

In order to maintain Voice quality during data downloads, certain flow controls and priority mechanisms have been that will affect the data download speed while calls are in progress. The effect is that the download speed will vary on a per session basis depending on the Round Trip Delay (RTD) to the server being accessed. Downloads from a server with a low RTD (eg. a UK based server) will be significantly faster than a download from a site further away (e.g. a US based server). By way of an example a download from a typical UK-based server would have a maximum throughput of 400kbps once the first call has been established. The aggregate available bandwidth is not affected and depending on network conditions elsewhere, the line can still deliver its full capacity.

Service Implementation and Growth

Because the technology is new, we appreciate that you will probably want to test the service in a controlled environment on a limited number of users before introducing it across your workforce. The service can scale upwards to use a number of ADSL lines, so you can start with a handful of users and add more call capacity and users in a phased rollout to your workforce. Multiple ADSL connections can be run in parallel on one LAN segment, so you can start with one ADSL line delivering 5 calls worth of capacity and roll it out to between 5 and 10 users. The number you choose will depend upon how often people use the phone - the important variable is 5 concurrent calls. Once you are satisfied with the technology, you can add additional ADSL lines delivering more capacity. Each ADSL line can carry 5 simultaneous calls. It is important to note that the calls made within an office - ie. on the same LAN - do not need any external bandwidth and so can be made on top of the 5 concurrent external calls. The more call capacity you use, the better your utilisation spread: if you have the capacity for 5 concurrent calls shared between 10 users, it is more likely that you will max out your capacity than if you have the capacity for 20 concurrent calls shared by 40 users.

The Business Case for a VoIP Implementation

The ratio between internal and external calls is 4:1 according to the DTI. With VOIP for Business, the calls you make within your company - as much as 80% of all your telephone calls - could be free. The other 20% of your calls will still be charged per minute, but with the VOIP Call Packages, you can make calls to 01 and 02 numbers for less than 1p per minute, even during peak hours. Calls to mobiles range from 10p to 18p per minute during peak hours and from 5p to 14p per minute off-peak and at weekends, so you can see that there are no hidden costs. VOIP for Business provides full PBX functionality scaled down for smaller offices that cannot afford the £50,000 or more that it costs for an IP enabled phone switch. By paying per user per month, small businesses can access the technology necessary to efficiently handle telephone calls. PBX functionality can also be purchased using a service equivalent to BT's Featureline product, where each user needs an analogue (PSTN) phone line. Because users are not all on the phone at the same time, there is capacity that is not being efficiently used. VOIP for Business customers can share the available lines between all users on the same site. Sharing telephone lines saves money on line rental and these savings become significant if you have more than 20 users at a site, when you would typically be able to cater for their needs with one line for every two users. The inclusion of PIPEX Secure, a Managed Security module also adds a significant amount of value, delivering exceptionally low cost expertise in the critical area of network security. Employing a suitably qualified IT resource with detailed understanding of Firewalls and Internet security would cost upwards of £45,000 per year. Outsourcing security to a Managed Security vendor would be considerably cheaper but still cost upwards of £2,000 per year including equipment.

www.pipex.net/products/voip/

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