Why Voice Still Matters

Communication is the cornerstone of commerce. Companies today enjoy a wide range of communication options. Face-toface meetings are still the most powerful, but are too expensive in terms of time and money for all but the most important interaction. Electronic communication, such as email and instant messaging, remains the most convenient and cost-effective, but lacks intimacy.

Yet, despite all of our technological advances, the best balance of efficiency and intimacy is still the telephone. This is why companies place so much importance on the voice network. However, several factors make managing voice network reliability more difficult than ever.

Most importantly, the network is more complex. In addition to the legacy POTS, companies now have VoIP and wireless voice networks. Simple voicemail has evolved into complex integrated messaging platforms. The generic black handset has been replaced by a plethora of devices including IP phones, cell phones, smart phones and even personal computers.

Further, the availability demands for the voice network are higher than in the past. Users expect the network to work without interruptions. The cost of losing phone service is so expensive that companies require five nines reliability around the clock. Thus, service level agreements (SLAs) are as demanding as ever before. And, finally, despite increased network complexity and higher SLAs, staffing of network support personnel has remained fl at or even declined.

As a result, one of the most pressing issues companies face today is how to eff ectively manage their voice network. Within this challenge lies a golden opportunity for service providers. Equipped with the proper tools they can become critical partners for companies looking to ensure availability of their voice network.

The Challenge of IP
Whether in-house or out-sourced, managing telecom equipment at remote locations can be costly. Even the simplest problem – for example, cycling the power on a remote PBX – could involve hours of time by a technician dispatched to the site. In order to keep site management costs under control, service providers must have reliable and cost-eff ective remote management tools to remotely manage telecom equipment.

Not surprisingly, remote management tools for supporting voice networks are nothing new. For decades service providers have managed voice networks using a variety of special-purpose remote monitoring devices. Typically these systems provided a way for technicians to remotely monitor equipment and provide access to the vendor’s management software on the remote equipment when necessary. What is new is the voice network itself. Traditional voice networks were primarily analog phone lines, and remote access was accomplished using serial modems. Today’s networks, however, are often built on open, network-based architectures. This is good news since networks provide much faster, more robust access to equipment. However, it also opens the door to some significant challenges.

Some of these challenges are straightforward – communicating using IP instead of serial modems, for example. The biggest challenge of remotely managing open IP-based networks is security. It can be difficult for enterprises to open their network enough that 3rd party technicians can access the remote equipment they need, yet not so much that they have access to other sensitive network resources. Providing connectivity across LANs and firewalls and routers without compromising security and/or getting bogged down with overly restrictive network security policies is the first challenge.

Next, most remote voice network management devices were designed specifically for the legacy voice network. They provide basic support for specific voice equipment such as PBX and other similar equipment. However, these devices provide weak or no support for new protocols and IP-based methods necessary to access, monitor and troubleshoot IP-based equipment found in today’s telecom environments.

Further, since many of these legacy remote management devices were designed primarily for dialup modem connectivity, they may provide limited or no support for standardized IP-based alarm and status reporting protocols, or that support may be ‘shoe-horned’ in to a product which was not designed to support these protocols from the start.

By contrast, there are a variety of robust network management systems (NMS) companies use to manage data networks. IBM’s Tivoli and HP’s OpenView support industry standard protocols.