03 September 2007

How to reduce hidden costs and find secret savings in a VoIP roll-out.

One of the key issues in implementing VoIP is cost. Until around 2005,
organisations that implemented VoIP did so because of its real or
perceived cost savings over traditional telephony.

In many cases, they did find substantial savings by eliminating costly
third-party contracts for moves, adds and changes (MAC), reducing the
amount of cabling required in new buildings, or leveraging idle
capacity in their data networks. Indeed, those savings existed, but so
did additional costs - effectively negating any net savings for the
first 12 to 18 months.

For the past two years, cost savings has been a secondary driver to
"future-proofing" the network. IT executives see IP as the platform for
the future, and they want to be prepared for new applications -
starting with voice - within a converged infrastructure. As a result,
they are more accepting of VoIP's hidden costs, such as consulting,
training and ongoing maintenance.