10 Things You Should Know about VOIP

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP

If you’re not on the VOIP (voice over IP) bandwagon yet, you’re likely planning to jump on soon. With Microsoft’s entry into the space last year, VOIP has gotten more attention than ever before. Both large and small companies alike are

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 1.

Voice Is Not Just Another App on the Network

VOIP traffic is real-time and latency-sensitive. For those reasons, bandwidth needs to be adequate to support it along with the other applications that share the network. It will be important to implem

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 2.

Start Any VOIP Project with a Pre-assessment of Your Network

Don’t assume your network is ready to handle VOIP. It may have lots of issues that don’t have an impact on data traffic but could cause a VOIP deployment to fail. Cabling i

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 3.

Don’t Assume You’ll Be Saving Big Bucks Initially on Toll Bypass

You’ll most likely have to upgrade your network to support VOIP and, at the very least, add POE (Power over Ethernet) to support it. Those upgrades, along with the

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 4.

Plan, Plan, Plan

It’s important to know what you want to accomplish and why, and then define your scope of action before you perform a VOIP deployment. Said one veteran implementer, “You can’t be successful unless you know wher

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 5.

Datacom, Telecom and the Skills Gap

It takes skills and expertise in both the data communications and telecom worlds to adequately support any sizable VOIP deployment. Be willing to train support staff to develop those skills, or think about going

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 6.

Don’t Forget a Disaster-Recovery Plan

Make sure you have some kind of backup for your voice traffic, whether that means having links to a legacy PBX or making sure your existing network can handle any kind of outage—including a power

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 7.

Research E911 Requirements

You’ll have to research your E911 (Enhanced 911) requirements, which vary from state to state. Some states will require the ability to identify the physical address of an E911 caller; others require the ability to

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 8.

Wireless VOIP Adds Yet Another Wrinkle

If you’re implementing wireless VOIP, you may need to revisit your access point coverage to make sure it’s wall-to-wall. Users will invariably try to work in places you might not have thought abou

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 9.

What about the Wiring Closet?

Will your wiring closets be big enough to accommodate any equipment you may need to add, such as local gateways and UPSs (uninterruptible power supplies)? And, with the additional heat generated by POE, you may need

10 Things You Should Know about VOIP – 10.

VOIP Is Not Secure

Just like data packets, VOIP packets can be sniffed, so it’s important that sensitive conversations and signaling are protected through encryption. You may also want to consider authenticating users and establishing auth

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