Page 23 - Cisco Tribune Q1 2015

December/January 2017
Telecom Reseller 23 Chairman Wheeler
REAL WORLD UC
Your Q&A on managing real UC Avaya and Nortel based networks
have analog ports for fax machines and other devices.
Companies installing new telephone systems are mostly installing IP-based systems instead of the traditional phone systems. I’ll tell you a little secret, though. e big phone systems have already changed their platforms so that they
are internally all IP anyway. ey just have card slots that connect to non-IP phones.
WHERE WE ARE GOING
Your local network system account rep will
tell you that soon the entirety of telephony (including home phones, if they still exist) will be VoIP. It’s possible they are correct. If so, we will need many, many more network engineers working to maintain networks that will be
able to handle voice at a reasonable quality
& consistency. For today, though, does your company sta to maintain QoS and su cient bandwidth throughout its network? Do you know what that means?
AREAS OF CONCERN
Network downtime is one area of concern for using VoIP. It’s one thing for a company to have a few minutes here and there with the network unavailable or partially down. It’s another to have the phones out for that amount of time. A er all, phones carry 911 tra c where minutes lost can be lives lost. If you have even one
WAN link in your network with insu cient bandwidth for uninterrupted voice, that can be devastating to your business on VoIP.
Overloaded segments on your network can be just as bad as outages. Let’s say you have large system backups that occur during business hours, and you normally have delays for an hour. Delays can cause a minor inconvenience for people checking the stock market or reading email, while phone calls will simply be impossible. ●
Data to maximise business productivity. Involvement in bringing Big Data to its full potential could open telcos up to new revenue streams, and provide them a gateway to smart cities and the Internet of ings, which will further their growth trajectory in nitely.
Only 0.5% of business data is currently being analyzed; providing signi cant opportunity
for telcos to deploy Big Data solutions that assist enterprises in business decisions. Telcos
Announces His Plans To Step Down
To VoIP or not to VoIP− is that the question?
HOW WE GOT HERE
Telephones communicate by way of copper wires. At least, that’s how it started, and there are still quite a few copper-connected telephones. When I rst used a home phone many years ago, the phone cord was wired into a wall jack with screw terminals, and if anything went wrong we had to call the phone company to have it xed. Portability came years later when the phone company made square 4-pronged plugs and jacks (that only they could install) to allow users to move the phone from one room to another. Modular plugs like we know today followed.
It wasn’t until the 1980’s that I rst saw a “digital” PBX telephone. e rst ones weren’t what we would call digital now; they were hybrid phones with one pair that carried analog voice and an accompanying signaling pair. Digital sets did nally follow. An AT&T account rep told me once that the Nortel telephones weren’t digital because digital sets had to use four wires. At the time, AT&T digital phones used pins 1, 2, 3, & 6 just like Ethernet. I never understood the logic behind that engineering decision.
All this time, since the 60’s, a government- sponsored project (ARPANET) was quietly turning into a worldwide communication medium with such power and ubiquity that people seemed to stand around thinking
JIRBANDY
In today’s increasingly digital world, at
the beginnings of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, the volume of data that is created and stored worldwide on a daily basis is inconceivable. Business data has increased
in volume, velocity and variety, and it is this increase that is the true meaning and relevance of Big Data.
Big Data is capable of providing indispensable business insights as long as
it is e ciently managed. Smart analysis of
Big Data can assist enterprises in making businesses decisions that could ultimately result in cost reductions, time reductions,
new and optimized product development
and streamlined business processes. Raising Big Data to reach its higher potential, are companies who are combining Big Data with high-tech analytical solutions, to discover information that is even more powerful and insightful. e use cases for Big Data and smart analytics are limitless, including:
1. Diagnosing the cause of system failures quickly and e ciently
2. Generating recommendations at the point of sale, based on the customer’s buying habits
3. Detecting fraudulent behaviour fast and resolving the issue before your business is
RUFFIN
by Phil Ruffin
about what else it could take over. ese network engineers turned to traditional voice communication and found ways to move voice communication to their platform. Traditional voice system manufacturers welcomed this
new platform as a way to sell more systems,
and network system manufacturers turned to replacing traditional PBXs with IP-only systems.
ere are many who will tell you that all telephone communication will eventually (and soon!) be over networks as VoIP. at may be true.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
I don’t have gures for this, but I believe there are many (is it a majority?) companies with traditional phone systems. Some of those companies (probably a lot) have added some IP phones to their systems. Some will say that they have completely converted to IP phones. I smile at that because I know that virtually all of them
a ected
4. Many more
An example of a company that is a Big
Data success story is Uber. Monitoring use
of its application by both drivers and users, Uber has mapped a real-time logistics ow of human transportation. is use of Big Data has enabled Uber to enter new markets and continually regenerate the company and their revenue streams. Uber are the perfect example
WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman Tom Wheeler, a er more three years at the helm
of the agency, announced he intends to leave the Federal Communications Commission on January 20, 2017. Chairman Wheeler issued the following statement:
“Serving as F.C.C. Chairman during this period of historic technological change has been the greatest honor of my professional life. I am deeply grateful to the President for giving me this opportunity. I am especially thankful to the talented Commission sta for their service and sacri ce during my tenure. eir achievements have contributed to a thriving communications sector, where robust investment and world- leading innovation continue to drive our economy and meaningful improvements in
the lives of the American people. It has been a privilege to work with my fellow Commissioners to help protect consumers, strengthen public safety and cybersecurity, and ensure fast, fair and open networks for all Americans.” ●
TR
TELECOM RESELLER .COM
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more. is information helps telcos to gain
an understanding of individual customer activity, and to then cater solutions to t
these requirements. Organisations can also
use recorded data to analyse the sentiment of their customers and internal communications and keep a catalogue of smart, searchable call recordings. Ultimately, Big Voice turns audio and call recordings into rich business assets, enabling companies to streamline and improve
Uber are the perfect example of how the potential of Big Data is not in the volume of data, but its use, and they used it for a very simple purpose - to dispatch cars to the right users.
of how the potential of Big Data is not in the volume of data, but its use, and they used it for a very simple purpose - to dispatch cars to the right users. With this simple yet powerful use of Big Data, Uber have grown into a company that is currently dominating the consumer transportation sector.
e nal question is how to build solutions that enable enterprise users to utilise Big
need only tap into Big Data’s potential to gain access to unlimited numbers of new clients and pro t opportunities. Even more signi cant for telcos is Big Voice, a branch of Big Data that provides deep insights into customer communications, going beyond simple statistics. Big Voice enables telcos to deduce a customer's communication pattern by analysing their call times, locations and
business processes, ultimately increasing the likelihood of retaining customers.
e role that telcos must play in Big Data management, what Big Data will mean for call centres and similar businesses, and the future of communications once Big Data and analytics solutions are partnered, will all be addressed in the next post in the Big Data series. ●
Clarity