IP Telephony Can Be the Remedy for Networking Woes

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Recent Yankee Group research has shown that a large percentage of enterprises haven't leveraged voice equipment to improve operational efficiency. Most large enterprises have a network made up of PBXs [Private Branch Exchange] at a few of their main offices and key systems scattered throughout the rest of the organization. In most cases, the systems don't network. This results in higher costs for system administration and intra-office phone calls. Several Fortune 500 companies were among those we recently interviewed. They all had voice networks made up of disparate systems that don't work together.

Many enterprises have a configuration of phone systems that don't network for the following reasons: Due to mergers and acquisitions, these companies acquired phone systems from different vendors that didn't integrate with their existing systems. Circuit-switched PBXs have deliberately been built to not network with other vendors' systems. This encouraged buyers to go to their existing vendor when they added a new office. Generally, vendors haven't adopted networking protocols such as QSIG that allow for networking of multivendor systems. Many companies have separate buying groups with their own agendas. Therefore, they don't have a coordinated strategy to set up a network of voice systems that integrate with one another.

A Yankee Group study in 2000 found that 28 percent of the US$19.5 billion revenues collected by vendors and resellers of voice equipment were generated by adds, moves and changes. One major reason why enterprises are paying so much for service calls is that their voice network isn't managed from a central location.

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