Page 23 - Telecom Reseller May-June 2017

May/June 2017 Telecom Reseller 23 To VoIP or not to VoIP—Is that the Question? Part 3
RUFFIN
by Phil Run
In our last discussion, it became obvious that combining voice and data on the already necessary data connection to every desk was a
no-brainer that saves money. Having the voice tra c simply added to your existing datastream on your existing cabling system completely eliminates an entire wiring infrastructure and eliminates IT involvement in moving a phone. Now we need to talk about what it takes to accomplish this feat of magic.
Every tiny piece of data that travels across your network is part of a magical container called a packet. Packets are tiny snips of information that take many forms and carry all kinds of information.
Your email arrives in packets. When you click on a link, packets are sent. Every picture that appears in your browser (even the naughty ones) arrives in packets. ese packets can travel a long way from various sources around the world to reach your computer. As a matter of fact, two packets that are parts of the same
sentence can take utterly di erent routes, speeding through di erent countries to reach you. When the second one gets there before
the rst one, it has to sit and wait for the rst one to arrive. at delay of the rst packet is called latency. Latency is delay in the network. When you have multiple people on the network moving large les at the same time, delays can be considerable; they can even take a whole second to arrive.
When latency occurs, a part of your network may have to increase a bu er that e ectively establishes on purpose a delay in presenting subsequent packets. at purposeful delay to give more time for packets to arrive is called jitter. When jitter exceeds 150 milliseconds for voice tra c, people notice the delay and are frustrated with an unworkable disruption of the normal rhythm of conversation.
Sometimes packets do not arrive at all. at is called packet loss. Some programs will request a replacement, creating further delay.
To compare these terms to everyday business life, think of department meetings. e meeting can’t start until everyone arrives. Delay is
when one or more of the members is late. Over time, the 10:00 meeting seems to start at 10:15 because someone is always late.
at’s jitter. If some people don’t arrive at all, or if you have to send someone for them, that’s packet loss.
Such delays are devastating to voice tra c on your network, just as they are to your meeting.
Your network may have locations with a lower bandwidth, such as a separate building
or remote location. A connection that was designed for carrying email and other business tra c is likely to be completely inadequate once voice tra c is added to it. As a result, voice conversation is impossible.
Further, maybe that remote location has
a “shared” service such as MPLS where your tra c is mixed with other companies’ data, or even worse, over the internet. ere may be no guarantee that packets will arrive at all, much less arrive on time and intact.
Even a er a successful implementation of VoIP, you may move people around or populate an empty area. Suddenly the voice tra c can’t make it through in a timely manner. Email and other data applications may only experience slight delays that would be unnoticeable
to most, but with VoIP you suddenly have frustrated, unhappy workers.
Most companies still have fax machines. Certain areas of company operations o en insist on fax machines for various reasons. Not only that, but fax machines need to be moved around from one place to another as departments change and move.
Eventually you are faced with having your old wiring infrastructure become a necessity
for analog lines. You have to bring back your telecom people who are familiar with that wiring infrastructure to perform those moves and document the changes.
How are you handling your 911 calls today? Do your techs track where people are so 911 calls will show the correct address? VoIP phones can be moved at will by the users. e users consider this a handy feature because they don’t have to wait for a telecom tech to move wires. It can, however, be deadly. How so? Suppose a VoIP user is working on a project with a group in a di erent building and moves to a di erent cube in another building to be closer to the team he starts working with.
e user has a heart attack and dials 911, losing consciousness before the PSAP answers. e 911 operator dispatches emergency personnel to the address on record—the building where the phone was originally located. Even the receptionist doesn’t know that the user moved the phone, so no one gets there in time.
e money saving no-brainer of combining voice and data on a single network has nally become a nightmare.
What can be done to turn this around and x all of these issues before we destroy the company, or worse, lose our jobs?
We can try to make things better in our next conversation. Don’t go away! ■
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