Voice and data telephony are fast becoming commodity-priced services across the African continent, as price wars create a cutthroat market.
But the SA telecoms environment remains overpriced and Internet penetration remains extraordinarily low, prompting executive director of Research ICT Africa Alison Gillwald to call for a serious ICT policy overhaul in the region.
Gillwald points out that, although SA has been an early adopter of many new technologies, its Internet penetration rate remains low and the country is no longer even a leader in broadband access on the most unconnected continent in the world.
She attributes this situation to the high cost of all communication services in the country from mobile through to leased lines and broadband services.
SA over-priced
“Historically, the cellular telephony market has enjoyed profits from exceptionally high, unregulated pricing. Dominant cellphone operators increased their termination rates by 500% in 2002, for example, and they remained there for nearly a decade, while in competitive markets in Africa they plummeted with rapid and effective regulatory intervention,” notes Gillwald.
SA's regulator adjusted the mobile termination price last year. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) regulations will require the cellular industry players to reduce their peak cellphone call-termination rates to 73c a minute by this March, to 56c a minute by March 2012, and to 40c by 2013.
Off-peak cellphone termination rates will drop to 65c a minute by March this year and 52c a minute by March next year, with the off-peak charges dropping to 40c a minute by March 2013.
But Gillwald argues that the cuts to South African interconnection charges and, therefore, retail prices, will still be magnitudes of scale higher than the best performers in Africa.
Mobile operators across Africa are reeling from cutthroat competition that has seen call rates slashed by as much as 90% in countries such as Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. This tumble has been accelerated in recent months by the arrival of international operators.
She points out that operators in these countries have all seen positive effects from increased usage, with more affordable mobile prices and, in many cases, greater profitability.
Bharti Airtel, in particular, is shaking up markets, following acquisitions in 16 African countries and its moves to replicate the low-rate strategy that has made it the dominant mobile operator in Asia.
However, delegates at the recently hosted Next-Generation Telecoms Africa 2011 Summit have pointed out that in SA, where mobile penetration is the highest in Africa at 98%, prepaid users pay up to R2.85 per minute, or more than 33 times the Airtel Kenya rate.
Even on special packages, they added, where South African prepaid users can pay rates of as little as R1.50 per minute, the Airtel tariffs are still less than 15% of that amount.
Overall, tariffs in Kenya are now running at around 20% of the equivalent rates charged by Vodacom, MTN and Cell C in SA, and often at a lot less than that, it was also established.
ICASA promises competition
ICASA last week commended itself for the publishing of interconnect regulations late last year, noting that it had two main expectations of the finalised regulations.
“Firstly, we expect the fixed to mobile retail call rates to reduce as the mobile termination rates are reduced. “Secondly, we expect some measure of pass-through to a reduction in retail prices of calls between mobile networks. However, given the nature of product bundling in the provision of retail mobile services, we expect that price reductions will be subject to dynamic competition,” explained the authority.
“ICASA's view is that a lack of effective pass-through to retail prices will indicate that there may be a lack of effective competition in the retail market for mobile services.”
Therefore, the authority will monitor price movements in the retail market for mobile services vigilantly over the coming months to evaluate whether further action is required.
“For further monitoring purposes, ICASA has been and will continue to receive tariff and related compliance reports from the operators,” stated ICASA.
But Gillwald argues that prices need to be understood as policy outcomes. “Any strategy to reduce prices needs to be part of a broader policy overhaul that will require the identification of policy levers to improve the country's sub-optimal performance.
“This will include identifying the necessary conditions for attracting critical investments in infrastructure extension, the optimal market structure and institutional arrangements, together with short-term incentive strategies to promote the uptake of PCs and Internet-enhanced devices, to longer term educational and IT literacy programmes, and identifying demand stimulation strategies that are essential to ensuring digital inclusion,” she advises.
- Leigh-Ann Francis, ITWeb
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Why ICASA's critics have it wrong
The job of a regulator is never easy. It involves delicately balancing often divergent interests. There is no better illustration of this than the recently published call termination regulations, and the media reports that followed.
In its press release following publication of the regulations, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) stated that it had a triple mandate of ensuring fair prices to consumers, promoting competition in the information and communications technology sector, and promoting a favourable investment environment.
But, if media reports are to be believed, publication of the regulations has left parliamentarians and consumers dissatisfied with both the outcome and impact of the intervention.
Icasa’s job is made more difficult by perceptions that have formed over time that it is a weak regulator that dances to the tune of industry. These perceptions persist even though Icasa has made great strides in changing the industry landscape, working under difficult circumstances. It is much easier to throw around unsubstantiated and sweeping statements about Icasa’s authority and abilities than to support it in its efforts.
Much of the criticism levelled against Icasa within the context of the call termination regulations stems from a lack of understanding of the intention and expected impact of these regulations.
Consumers view call termination or interconnection rates as a retail price mechanism whose regulation must then necessarily induce an immediate and direct downward pressure on the price they pay for making calls. When this doesn’t happen, daggers are drawn and Icasa’s efforts are rubbished as futile.
Call termination rates are the fees telecommunications companies charge each other for interconnecting or handling calls across networks. By definition, it’s a wholesole rather than a retail rate.
If such a rate is set artificially at a high level, as has been the case over the last 15 years or so in SA, it affects the ability of smaller operators to compete against larger, more established players. Inevitably, the high wholesale cost is passed on to consumers in the form of higher retail or call rates.
When the wholesale rate is reduced, a natural expectation is for retail rates to follow suit. However, the relationship between the call termination rate and the retail price of a call is not a straightforward one and the impact of a reduction in the former cannot be ascertained based on theoretical deduction.
Economists often use the concept of “rockets and feathers” to illustrate the general rapid rise of prices and their often steady and slow decrease.
What is clear, though, is that a reduction of wholesale interconnection rates always affects competition in a direct manner.
Through competition, retail prices are expected to fall, service quality is expected to improve and more services are expected to be introduced into the market as innovation is spurred.
The primary significance of a reduction of wholesale interconnection rates is to change and modify the electronic communications market structure, to introduce new players into the sector and to foster healthy competition within the industry. It is competition that will result in lower retail rates.
Prudent regulatory practice justifies the regulation of retail prices where there is monopoly supply of goods or services. Where there are multiple suppliers the regulator must ensure that the interplay among competitors is fair; that the exercise of market power is tamed and that there is open, fair and non-discriminatory access to essential facilities, networks and network components.
Where the regulation of interconnection rates has occurred elsewhere in the world, the regulation of retail rates has become unnecessary as prices fall naturally due to competition.
Icasa has issued more than 500 electronic communications services and electronic communications network service licences. However, only a handful of licensees are active in the market, owing partly to high interconnection rates. The call termination regulations, coupled with other interventions, are meant to change the behaviour of market participants, with the ultimate benefits flowing to consumers.
In arriving at the set rate, Icasa had to balance the interests of consumers and smaller operators who would like to see an immediate drop in interconnection rates to cost-orientated levels with those of larger operators who have benefited over time from high interconnection rates and who would like to maintain the status quo or prolong the reduction for as long as it is possible.
The authority proposed a glide path, which gives operators time to adjust their business models and to innovate while at the same time affording smaller operators sizeable cuts.
Following the initial reduction of interconnection rates brokered by former communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda – from R1,25/minute to 89c/minute in peak times, MTN laid off hundreds of workers. Nashua Mobile is also retrenching staff and citing lower interconnection rates as a reason.
Vodacom reportedly incurred losses of about R800m in revenue in the first half of its financial year. Telkom reported a loss of R640m in revenue since the first rate cut in March 2010. Vox Telecom has recently announced an R842m impairment of goodwill at its Vox Orion subsidiary owing to reductions in interconnection rates.
Talk of more industry retrenchments abounds.
Icasa could not ignore the potential job losses at a time when the economy is emerging from a devastating recession. When balanced out, though the benefits of the cuts should outweigh the negatives.
That said, bigger operators must remain viable, while smaller ones are assisted to grow bigger and better — all without compromising healthy and sound competition.
To suggest, therefore, that Icasa has bowed to pressure from the big operators is to ignore evidence and instead fall back on the easier and more comfortable route of rubbishing the regulator.
Icasa is changing for the better while its critics remain stuck in the past.
The work of conducting market reviews using competition analysis is the first ever in SA, yet the quality of the work done ranks among the best countries in the world. This is despite Icasa’s shoe-string budget and inadequate capacity.
It is worth noting that when the Competition Amendment Act was being drafted, the line department had to consider first the financial impact of the amendments on the competition authorities. Adjustments had to be made to the medium-term expenditure framework allocation at the time. The framework is government’s three-year budget projection.
Moreover, the theme of “strengthening the competition authorities” was adopted throughout the consultation stages, making it easier to sell the amendments, get buy-in, and rally everyone behind the competition authorities.
In 2006, parliament passed the Electronic Communications Act, introducing a new way of regulating the industry, and calling for particular expertise, skills, capacity and structure. Yet, unlike the competition authorities, Icasa continues to operate on the same budget and funding model it had during the previous era.
Critical questions were not asked about what the financial implications of the new act would be on Icasa. It is, however, heartening that new communications minister Roy Padayachie has promised to strengthen Icasa by enhancing its financial and technical competency so that it functions with confidence and independence.
This is exactly what Icasa needs now. In the meantime, it will continue to fulfil its mandate without fear or prejudice.
- TechCentral, on behalf of Fungai Sibanda
In its press release following publication of the regulations, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) stated that it had a triple mandate of ensuring fair prices to consumers, promoting competition in the information and communications technology sector, and promoting a favourable investment environment.
But, if media reports are to be believed, publication of the regulations has left parliamentarians and consumers dissatisfied with both the outcome and impact of the intervention.
Icasa’s job is made more difficult by perceptions that have formed over time that it is a weak regulator that dances to the tune of industry. These perceptions persist even though Icasa has made great strides in changing the industry landscape, working under difficult circumstances. It is much easier to throw around unsubstantiated and sweeping statements about Icasa’s authority and abilities than to support it in its efforts.
Much of the criticism levelled against Icasa within the context of the call termination regulations stems from a lack of understanding of the intention and expected impact of these regulations.
Consumers view call termination or interconnection rates as a retail price mechanism whose regulation must then necessarily induce an immediate and direct downward pressure on the price they pay for making calls. When this doesn’t happen, daggers are drawn and Icasa’s efforts are rubbished as futile.
Call termination rates are the fees telecommunications companies charge each other for interconnecting or handling calls across networks. By definition, it’s a wholesole rather than a retail rate.
If such a rate is set artificially at a high level, as has been the case over the last 15 years or so in SA, it affects the ability of smaller operators to compete against larger, more established players. Inevitably, the high wholesale cost is passed on to consumers in the form of higher retail or call rates.
When the wholesale rate is reduced, a natural expectation is for retail rates to follow suit. However, the relationship between the call termination rate and the retail price of a call is not a straightforward one and the impact of a reduction in the former cannot be ascertained based on theoretical deduction.
Economists often use the concept of “rockets and feathers” to illustrate the general rapid rise of prices and their often steady and slow decrease.
What is clear, though, is that a reduction of wholesale interconnection rates always affects competition in a direct manner.
Through competition, retail prices are expected to fall, service quality is expected to improve and more services are expected to be introduced into the market as innovation is spurred.
The primary significance of a reduction of wholesale interconnection rates is to change and modify the electronic communications market structure, to introduce new players into the sector and to foster healthy competition within the industry. It is competition that will result in lower retail rates.
Prudent regulatory practice justifies the regulation of retail prices where there is monopoly supply of goods or services. Where there are multiple suppliers the regulator must ensure that the interplay among competitors is fair; that the exercise of market power is tamed and that there is open, fair and non-discriminatory access to essential facilities, networks and network components.
Where the regulation of interconnection rates has occurred elsewhere in the world, the regulation of retail rates has become unnecessary as prices fall naturally due to competition.
Icasa has issued more than 500 electronic communications services and electronic communications network service licences. However, only a handful of licensees are active in the market, owing partly to high interconnection rates. The call termination regulations, coupled with other interventions, are meant to change the behaviour of market participants, with the ultimate benefits flowing to consumers.
In arriving at the set rate, Icasa had to balance the interests of consumers and smaller operators who would like to see an immediate drop in interconnection rates to cost-orientated levels with those of larger operators who have benefited over time from high interconnection rates and who would like to maintain the status quo or prolong the reduction for as long as it is possible.
The authority proposed a glide path, which gives operators time to adjust their business models and to innovate while at the same time affording smaller operators sizeable cuts.
Following the initial reduction of interconnection rates brokered by former communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda – from R1,25/minute to 89c/minute in peak times, MTN laid off hundreds of workers. Nashua Mobile is also retrenching staff and citing lower interconnection rates as a reason.
Vodacom reportedly incurred losses of about R800m in revenue in the first half of its financial year. Telkom reported a loss of R640m in revenue since the first rate cut in March 2010. Vox Telecom has recently announced an R842m impairment of goodwill at its Vox Orion subsidiary owing to reductions in interconnection rates.
Talk of more industry retrenchments abounds.
Icasa could not ignore the potential job losses at a time when the economy is emerging from a devastating recession. When balanced out, though the benefits of the cuts should outweigh the negatives.
That said, bigger operators must remain viable, while smaller ones are assisted to grow bigger and better — all without compromising healthy and sound competition.
To suggest, therefore, that Icasa has bowed to pressure from the big operators is to ignore evidence and instead fall back on the easier and more comfortable route of rubbishing the regulator.
Icasa is changing for the better while its critics remain stuck in the past.
The work of conducting market reviews using competition analysis is the first ever in SA, yet the quality of the work done ranks among the best countries in the world. This is despite Icasa’s shoe-string budget and inadequate capacity.
It is worth noting that when the Competition Amendment Act was being drafted, the line department had to consider first the financial impact of the amendments on the competition authorities. Adjustments had to be made to the medium-term expenditure framework allocation at the time. The framework is government’s three-year budget projection.
Moreover, the theme of “strengthening the competition authorities” was adopted throughout the consultation stages, making it easier to sell the amendments, get buy-in, and rally everyone behind the competition authorities.
In 2006, parliament passed the Electronic Communications Act, introducing a new way of regulating the industry, and calling for particular expertise, skills, capacity and structure. Yet, unlike the competition authorities, Icasa continues to operate on the same budget and funding model it had during the previous era.
Critical questions were not asked about what the financial implications of the new act would be on Icasa. It is, however, heartening that new communications minister Roy Padayachie has promised to strengthen Icasa by enhancing its financial and technical competency so that it functions with confidence and independence.
This is exactly what Icasa needs now. In the meantime, it will continue to fulfil its mandate without fear or prejudice.
- TechCentral, on behalf of Fungai Sibanda
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Will enterprises ever warm up to Skype for business communications?
Unified communications (UC) pros generally regard Skype as a consumer service that can supplement enterprise UC tools, but they hesitate to depend entirely on Skype for business communications. Skype is obviously courting enterprises by partnering with companies like Avaya, but it remains unclear if the Internet telephony giant can convince enterprises that it has the control, reliability, features and security that UC pros expect of their primary voice, video and collaboration platforms.
"Right now I think they're just for the SMB. That's as far as they could go," said Ed Garcia, IT director at Horn Group, a small San Francisco-based public relations agency. "They have a good chance of being a true enterprise player, but of course they have to change their image because Skype is definitely [seen as a] consumer [tool]."
After months of testing Skype-Business Version -- the Web-based VoIP provider's business-class product, formerly called Skype for Business -- Garcia has standardized on Skype as his primary video conferencing platform. Employees in his California and New York offices use it regularly to hold meetings with each other. Skype-Business Version has been integrated into the firm's video conferencing room equipment for single-click access.
Garcia's users also favor Skype's screen-sharing tools for presentations during video conferences in lieu of other collaboration tools, such as Cisco Systems WebEx and Citrix GoToMeeting.
But video conferencing is not a mission-critical communications application for the firm, and Garcia said he would not feel comfortable relying on Skype for business IP telephony. He is troubled by the platform's susceptibility to spam and adware, occasional outages and its lack of Microsoft Active Directory integration. Another sore point: limited administrative tools.
"Recently, one of the office's video [streams] keeps cutting out during the meetings," Garcia said. "I tried every control and every parameter, and nothing seems to help. If [Skype] want[s] to play enterprise, they need to offer more control."
Skype's plan for going after the enterprise
Over the past few months, Skype has made a number of moves that signal its seriousness about going after the enterprise market. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, Skype announced a multipoint video conferencing feature to accommodate up to 10 participants in Skype-Business Version at $8.99 per user per month. Late last year, it launched a channel program, entered into a strategic alliance with Avaya and hired away high-ranking Cisco executive Tony Bates to be its new CEO.
At the same time, Skype's enterprise credibility took a blow when its service suffered from a widespread 24-hour outage between Dec. 22 and 23. In a blog post, Skype CIO Lars Rabbe explained how Skype's peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture "became unstable and suffered a critical failure."
Executives at Skype Enterprise, the provider's enterprise arm, shake off the notion that the outage is illustrative of Skype's ability to support business customers. About one third of Skype's registered user base uses Skype for business communications, according to David Gurlé, vice president and general manager of Skype Enterprise.
Thinking about Skype for your remote workforce? Read about the pros and cons of Skype for mobile workers.
How do Skype and other VoIP services fit into a disaster recovery plan?
"From an enterprise perspective, we are looking into providing greater reliability for our customers and ensuring their mission-critical needs are met against the service we can provide," he said. "Voice over IP gets more and more reliable every day … so we feel that on a best effort network, it gets better and better."
Skype isn't in the market to replace an enterprise's legacy UC infrastructure and doesn't see itself competing against incumbent UC vendors such as Cisco and Avaya, Gurlé said.
"We are not in the substitution market. We are in the complementary market," he said. "It's kind of an overlay across other communications infrastructure and application that people have deployed."
Skype for business communications: Tolerated but not encouraged
Most large organizations in the United States condone but don't officially encourage or support employees using Skype for business, according to Irwin Lazar, vice president at Nemertes Research. Formal adoption appears more rampant in Europe, he said.
"In the last two years, I've come across one organization that actively relies on Skype and its official policy is that you'll get a Skype account," Lazar said. "It was a nonprofit that was looking for the cheapest possible [UC platform]."
Enterprises no longer cite security as a main concern but feel Skype is simply not enterprise-ready, he said. Skype-Business Version as it stands today lacks the technical support, feature set, reliability and integration with legacy systems that enterprises have come to expect from traditional UC vendors, Lazar said. Making those changes would likely require Skype to raise its rates, however, and lose much of its appeal, he said.
Skype-Business Version 'complementary' today, replacing PBX tomorrow?
For ePromos.com, an online retailer, Skype-Business Version has become one of the most reliable IT services it supports. David Wagner, infrastructure manager at ePromos, said he deployed Skype after remote employees continued to be plagued by poor call quality and dropped calls with his existing VoIP infrastructure. He also purchased VoSKY, a gateway to connect legacy phone systems to Skype. Other products would have required ePromos to rip and replace its telephony systems, Wagner said.
The use of Skype for business communications spread virally at ePromos. More users wanted to switch to Skype and soon requests flooded in for IT to support Skype plug-ins for Web browsers, IM, video conferencing and mobile clients.
Remote employees receive inbound calls via ePromos' general toll-free number or directly through a Skype number. They use the client for both Skype-to-Skype and traditional outbound calling; most in-office users use Skype only for Skype-to-Skype calls, Wagner said.
"Right now it's complementary [to our legacy systems], but as time goes on and we find more and more uses for, it I would not be surprised if there comes a day [when] we say, 'How can we completely replace our PBX?'" he said.
Wagner supports Skype with two standard broadband connections -- one wired and one WiMAX. Users have had few complaints about quality and reliability with Skype-Business Version, he said, describing call quality as "incredible."
"I have more outages on our own network with little odds and ends here than I've had with Skype," Wagner said. "Something like [Skype's recent outage] doesn’t faze me. [It would] if this was recurring and happened a lot and was impacting our ability to do business, but [the late December outage] is the first [we experienced] since we implemented it."
Like other IT managers, Wagner said he would like to see Skype improve its administrative and management capabilities and enable Active Directory syncing.
"Skype Manager was a huge step in the right direction and helps a lot with being able to administer users in the system, but there are elements that are still distinctly consumer," he said. "That part as an administrator does bother me. I can't say they don't. I really want Skype in 2011 to really, really focus on the business aspect of their products."
- TechTarget
"Right now I think they're just for the SMB. That's as far as they could go," said Ed Garcia, IT director at Horn Group, a small San Francisco-based public relations agency. "They have a good chance of being a true enterprise player, but of course they have to change their image because Skype is definitely [seen as a] consumer [tool]."
After months of testing Skype-Business Version -- the Web-based VoIP provider's business-class product, formerly called Skype for Business -- Garcia has standardized on Skype as his primary video conferencing platform. Employees in his California and New York offices use it regularly to hold meetings with each other. Skype-Business Version has been integrated into the firm's video conferencing room equipment for single-click access.
Garcia's users also favor Skype's screen-sharing tools for presentations during video conferences in lieu of other collaboration tools, such as Cisco Systems WebEx and Citrix GoToMeeting.
But video conferencing is not a mission-critical communications application for the firm, and Garcia said he would not feel comfortable relying on Skype for business IP telephony. He is troubled by the platform's susceptibility to spam and adware, occasional outages and its lack of Microsoft Active Directory integration. Another sore point: limited administrative tools.
"Recently, one of the office's video [streams] keeps cutting out during the meetings," Garcia said. "I tried every control and every parameter, and nothing seems to help. If [Skype] want[s] to play enterprise, they need to offer more control."
Skype's plan for going after the enterprise
Over the past few months, Skype has made a number of moves that signal its seriousness about going after the enterprise market. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, Skype announced a multipoint video conferencing feature to accommodate up to 10 participants in Skype-Business Version at $8.99 per user per month. Late last year, it launched a channel program, entered into a strategic alliance with Avaya and hired away high-ranking Cisco executive Tony Bates to be its new CEO.
At the same time, Skype's enterprise credibility took a blow when its service suffered from a widespread 24-hour outage between Dec. 22 and 23. In a blog post, Skype CIO Lars Rabbe explained how Skype's peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture "became unstable and suffered a critical failure."
Executives at Skype Enterprise, the provider's enterprise arm, shake off the notion that the outage is illustrative of Skype's ability to support business customers. About one third of Skype's registered user base uses Skype for business communications, according to David Gurlé, vice president and general manager of Skype Enterprise.
More on Skype for business communications
Learn more about the security concerns IT pros should weigh for business Skype usage.Thinking about Skype for your remote workforce? Read about the pros and cons of Skype for mobile workers.
How do Skype and other VoIP services fit into a disaster recovery plan?
"From an enterprise perspective, we are looking into providing greater reliability for our customers and ensuring their mission-critical needs are met against the service we can provide," he said. "Voice over IP gets more and more reliable every day … so we feel that on a best effort network, it gets better and better."
Skype isn't in the market to replace an enterprise's legacy UC infrastructure and doesn't see itself competing against incumbent UC vendors such as Cisco and Avaya, Gurlé said.
"We are not in the substitution market. We are in the complementary market," he said. "It's kind of an overlay across other communications infrastructure and application that people have deployed."
Skype for business communications: Tolerated but not encouraged
Most large organizations in the United States condone but don't officially encourage or support employees using Skype for business, according to Irwin Lazar, vice president at Nemertes Research. Formal adoption appears more rampant in Europe, he said.
"In the last two years, I've come across one organization that actively relies on Skype and its official policy is that you'll get a Skype account," Lazar said. "It was a nonprofit that was looking for the cheapest possible [UC platform]."
Enterprises no longer cite security as a main concern but feel Skype is simply not enterprise-ready, he said. Skype-Business Version as it stands today lacks the technical support, feature set, reliability and integration with legacy systems that enterprises have come to expect from traditional UC vendors, Lazar said. Making those changes would likely require Skype to raise its rates, however, and lose much of its appeal, he said.
Skype-Business Version 'complementary' today, replacing PBX tomorrow?
For ePromos.com, an online retailer, Skype-Business Version has become one of the most reliable IT services it supports. David Wagner, infrastructure manager at ePromos, said he deployed Skype after remote employees continued to be plagued by poor call quality and dropped calls with his existing VoIP infrastructure. He also purchased VoSKY, a gateway to connect legacy phone systems to Skype. Other products would have required ePromos to rip and replace its telephony systems, Wagner said.
The use of Skype for business communications spread virally at ePromos. More users wanted to switch to Skype and soon requests flooded in for IT to support Skype plug-ins for Web browsers, IM, video conferencing and mobile clients.
Remote employees receive inbound calls via ePromos' general toll-free number or directly through a Skype number. They use the client for both Skype-to-Skype and traditional outbound calling; most in-office users use Skype only for Skype-to-Skype calls, Wagner said.
"Right now it's complementary [to our legacy systems], but as time goes on and we find more and more uses for, it I would not be surprised if there comes a day [when] we say, 'How can we completely replace our PBX?'" he said.
Wagner supports Skype with two standard broadband connections -- one wired and one WiMAX. Users have had few complaints about quality and reliability with Skype-Business Version, he said, describing call quality as "incredible."
"I have more outages on our own network with little odds and ends here than I've had with Skype," Wagner said. "Something like [Skype's recent outage] doesn’t faze me. [It would] if this was recurring and happened a lot and was impacting our ability to do business, but [the late December outage] is the first [we experienced] since we implemented it."
Like other IT managers, Wagner said he would like to see Skype improve its administrative and management capabilities and enable Active Directory syncing.
"Skype Manager was a huge step in the right direction and helps a lot with being able to administer users in the system, but there are elements that are still distinctly consumer," he said. "That part as an administrator does bother me. I can't say they don't. I really want Skype in 2011 to really, really focus on the business aspect of their products."
- TechTarget
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
What unbundling means for service providers and consumers
Drive around SA city streets and you’ll soon notice Telkom’s green and blue distribution cabinets, like the one pictured above near TechCentral’s offices in Johannesburg, writes Candice Jones.
Soon distribution cabinets of various colours could be popping up next to Telkom’s street boxes, thanks to local-loop unbundling. And their arrival could herald a steep reduction in fixed-line broadband costs for consumers and businesses.
Telkom’s distribution boxes, many of which now have fibre-optic cables running into them, are often the place where the company provides consumers with access to its digital subscriber lines, the broadband links over the copper cables that run into people’s homes.
The Internet market has long been anxious to see the local loop, the so-called last mile of copper cables that connects consumers and small businesses to Telkom’s network, unbundled.
This dream could be realised before the year is over, and rival operators and Internet service providers have to start thinking now about how they will gain access to this network to provide fixed-line broadband directly to consumers.
Worldwide, local-loop unbundling has boosted competition among Internet providers, driving down prices and paving the way for new services.
Greg Massel, CEO of alternative operator Switch Telecom, says one of the requirements is that Telkom allows competitors to “co-locate” telecommunications equipment in Telkom’s exchanges – and, closer to homes, in distribution cabinets — so they can gain direct access and provide onward connectivity over their own backhaul links.
Getting the equipment into these facilities is a big exercise, even if Internet service providers only want to serve niche areas rather than offering broadband services nationally.
“Costs will vary depending on the coverage area, the equipment used and the capacity deployed, but I think it’s safe to say the kind of investment required will limit the direct benefits of unbundling to larger service providers,” says Massel.
But he says smaller service providers will have more options when looking for alternative wholesale suppliers, which may help drive down prices.
For many local Internet providers, backhaul will be a key consideration. Web Africa CEO Matthew Tagg says getting fibre to Telkom’s facilities will be the biggest factor influencing how successful unbundling will be.
However, Tagg says alternative fibre network suppliers like Dark Fibre Africa have begun providing backhaul links, which should help keep prices down.
The process becomes complicated in areas where Telkom doesn’t provide broadband access over copper from its traditional telephone exchanges, but rather from the distribution cabinets along city streets.
In recent years, Telkom has actively laid fibre closer to people’s homes, running into distribution cabinets, and shortening the distance between consumers and high-speed fibre backhaul. Shortening the local loop in this way has allowed Telkom to offer higher-speed broadband, up to 10Mbit/s in some areas that are served by Metro Ethernet technology.
But it also means Internet service providers have to start thinking about deploying their equipment in those boxes, or even building their own, says Tagg. The problem is there isn’t much space in Telkom’s cabinets, so alternative providers will have to consider building their own cabinets nearby.
There have been suggestions that Telkom could offer what is called “bit-stream unbundling”, where it provides all the equipment other service providers need to connect customers. In this scenario, service providers won’t need to provide their own facilities in the exchanges or build their own distribution cabinets.
“The industry should have had bit-stream access from when Telkom first introduced digital subscriber lines,” says Tagg.
He says to propose bit-stream access as an alternative to full unbundling is “a big cop-out”. “It will do very little to drive competition or produce real change for customers.”
Tagg says full unbundling has been “very successful in Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand”. Increases in speeds and broadband quality in those countries can be directly attributed to the increase in competition brought on by unbundling.
“We are already playing catch-up with countries like Australia. By my estimation we about seven or eight years behind,” says Tagg.
Though smaller operators are looking forward to unbundling, larger players are wary of committing themselves to exactly what will be needed to take advantage of the process.
MWeb CEO Rudi Jansen says what will be required will depend to a large extent on what the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), stipulates must be unbundled.
The authority last week revealed, in an exclusive interview with TechCentral, that it hopes facilities-leasing regulations will be enough to force Telkom to provide competing operators access to the local loop.
In terms of the Electronic Communications Act, the local loop is considered an “essential facility” since it is a key aspect of the telecoms environment and operators are now able to demand access from Telkom.
However, Jansen says facilities leasing is only a portion of unbundling and will only take the process so far.
“At the end of the day we are all in the hands of what Icasa decides and how much Telkom would like to open up and under what conditions it will allow us into their facilities,” he says.
“We need naked digital subscriber lines, where telephone and broadband line rental is split and not a situation where one is conditional on the other,” Jansen says. “More exchanges need to be upgraded to be broadband-capable and investments need to be made in access speeds,” he says.
However, he says Icasa is not entirely on the wrong track. “For now, I think the regulator must go for the easy wins that will give immediate benefits to all.”
Internet Solutions MD Derek Wilcocks says the best bet for local-loop unbundling is for the country to impose on Telkom what UK regulator imposed on Britain’s incumbent fixed-line operator, BT Group.
BT spun off its local loop into a separate, independent company called Openreach, which manages, maintains upgrades and leases the local loop to competing operators, including BT itself, and does it in a way that is transparent to all market players.
“Creating a wholesale, transparent spin-off would be the most practical short-term solution for getting things done,” says Wilcocks.
However, he says Telkom is preparing new products that indicate it is taking unbundling seriously. “For example, it is offering aggregated capacity at the larger exchanges to competing providers, instead of charging for every circuit in that exchange.”
Whether Internet service providers will gain access to the local loop this year remains unclear. However, most industry players are hoping Telkom will meet the November deadline set by communications minister Roy Padayachie.
- TechCentral
Soon distribution cabinets of various colours could be popping up next to Telkom’s street boxes, thanks to local-loop unbundling. And their arrival could herald a steep reduction in fixed-line broadband costs for consumers and businesses.
Telkom’s distribution boxes, many of which now have fibre-optic cables running into them, are often the place where the company provides consumers with access to its digital subscriber lines, the broadband links over the copper cables that run into people’s homes.
The Internet market has long been anxious to see the local loop, the so-called last mile of copper cables that connects consumers and small businesses to Telkom’s network, unbundled.
This dream could be realised before the year is over, and rival operators and Internet service providers have to start thinking now about how they will gain access to this network to provide fixed-line broadband directly to consumers.
Worldwide, local-loop unbundling has boosted competition among Internet providers, driving down prices and paving the way for new services.
Greg Massel, CEO of alternative operator Switch Telecom, says one of the requirements is that Telkom allows competitors to “co-locate” telecommunications equipment in Telkom’s exchanges – and, closer to homes, in distribution cabinets — so they can gain direct access and provide onward connectivity over their own backhaul links.
Getting the equipment into these facilities is a big exercise, even if Internet service providers only want to serve niche areas rather than offering broadband services nationally.
“Costs will vary depending on the coverage area, the equipment used and the capacity deployed, but I think it’s safe to say the kind of investment required will limit the direct benefits of unbundling to larger service providers,” says Massel.
But he says smaller service providers will have more options when looking for alternative wholesale suppliers, which may help drive down prices.
For many local Internet providers, backhaul will be a key consideration. Web Africa CEO Matthew Tagg says getting fibre to Telkom’s facilities will be the biggest factor influencing how successful unbundling will be.
However, Tagg says alternative fibre network suppliers like Dark Fibre Africa have begun providing backhaul links, which should help keep prices down.
The process becomes complicated in areas where Telkom doesn’t provide broadband access over copper from its traditional telephone exchanges, but rather from the distribution cabinets along city streets.
In recent years, Telkom has actively laid fibre closer to people’s homes, running into distribution cabinets, and shortening the distance between consumers and high-speed fibre backhaul. Shortening the local loop in this way has allowed Telkom to offer higher-speed broadband, up to 10Mbit/s in some areas that are served by Metro Ethernet technology.
But it also means Internet service providers have to start thinking about deploying their equipment in those boxes, or even building their own, says Tagg. The problem is there isn’t much space in Telkom’s cabinets, so alternative providers will have to consider building their own cabinets nearby.
There have been suggestions that Telkom could offer what is called “bit-stream unbundling”, where it provides all the equipment other service providers need to connect customers. In this scenario, service providers won’t need to provide their own facilities in the exchanges or build their own distribution cabinets.
“The industry should have had bit-stream access from when Telkom first introduced digital subscriber lines,” says Tagg.
MWeb CEO Rudi Jansen
Tagg says full unbundling has been “very successful in Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand”. Increases in speeds and broadband quality in those countries can be directly attributed to the increase in competition brought on by unbundling.
“We are already playing catch-up with countries like Australia. By my estimation we about seven or eight years behind,” says Tagg.
Though smaller operators are looking forward to unbundling, larger players are wary of committing themselves to exactly what will be needed to take advantage of the process.
MWeb CEO Rudi Jansen says what will be required will depend to a large extent on what the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), stipulates must be unbundled.
The authority last week revealed, in an exclusive interview with TechCentral, that it hopes facilities-leasing regulations will be enough to force Telkom to provide competing operators access to the local loop.
In terms of the Electronic Communications Act, the local loop is considered an “essential facility” since it is a key aspect of the telecoms environment and operators are now able to demand access from Telkom.
However, Jansen says facilities leasing is only a portion of unbundling and will only take the process so far.
“At the end of the day we are all in the hands of what Icasa decides and how much Telkom would like to open up and under what conditions it will allow us into their facilities,” he says.
“We need naked digital subscriber lines, where telephone and broadband line rental is split and not a situation where one is conditional on the other,” Jansen says. “More exchanges need to be upgraded to be broadband-capable and investments need to be made in access speeds,” he says.
Internet Solutions MD Derek Wilcocks
However, he says Icasa is not entirely on the wrong track. “For now, I think the regulator must go for the easy wins that will give immediate benefits to all.”
Internet Solutions MD Derek Wilcocks says the best bet for local-loop unbundling is for the country to impose on Telkom what UK regulator imposed on Britain’s incumbent fixed-line operator, BT Group.
BT spun off its local loop into a separate, independent company called Openreach, which manages, maintains upgrades and leases the local loop to competing operators, including BT itself, and does it in a way that is transparent to all market players.
“Creating a wholesale, transparent spin-off would be the most practical short-term solution for getting things done,” says Wilcocks.
However, he says Telkom is preparing new products that indicate it is taking unbundling seriously. “For example, it is offering aggregated capacity at the larger exchanges to competing providers, instead of charging for every circuit in that exchange.”
Whether Internet service providers will gain access to the local loop this year remains unclear. However, most industry players are hoping Telkom will meet the November deadline set by communications minister Roy Padayachie.
- TechCentral
Friday, January 7, 2011
Research and Markets: South Africa - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts 2011
(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) RDATE:07012011 Dublin - Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8ca47e/south_africa_tel) has announced the addition of the "South Africa - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Forecasts" report to their offering.
This annual report provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments in South Africas telecommunications market. Subjects covered include: - Key statistics; - Market and industry overviews; - Government policies affecting the telecoms industry; - Market liberalisation and regulatory environment; - Major players (fixed, mobile and broadband); - Telecoms operators privatisation, acquisitions, new licences; - Infrastructure development; - National and municipal fibre rollouts; - International submarine fibre optic cables; - Mobile voice and data markets, including 3G and 4G; - Internet development; - Broadband, including 3G mobile; - Broadband pricing, fixed and mobile; - Average Revenue per User and churn; - Internet and broadband development and growth; - Broadband and mobile data services and pricing trends; - Convergence (voice/data, fixed/wireless/mobile); - Electronic banking and m-banking services; - Digital Media.
The continents leading telecoms and digital media market: South Africas telecom sector boasts the continents most advanced networks in terms of technology deployed and services provided. In a virtually saturated voice market, four mobile networks Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom SA are competing for market share in the next growth wave, mobile broadband. 3G/HSPA mobile broadband services now rival available DSL fixed-line offerings in terms of both speed and price, and consequently subscriber numbers. 2010 also saw the first trials of the next generation of mobile technology, LTE (also referred to as 4G) in South Africa.
While emerging as the countrys leading broadband providers, the major mobile operators are also branching out into fixed-lines, fibre backbone networks, international fibre connectivity, mobile banking and entertainment in a rapidly converging environment. Fixed-line incumbent Telkom SA has reacted by launching its own 3G mobile network and the countrys first commercial WiMAX service, but various competitors are hard on its heels rolling out the same technology, including second national operator Neotel.
Following years of delays with its licensing, Neotel is gaining traction in the market in competition with Telkom. This, in combination with other sweeping liberalisation measures, also delayed by years, has changed the countrys telecoms landscape fundamentally and brought prices down. In addition, the government has created Broadband InfraCo, a national infrastructure company to provide cheap backbone network capacity to service providers. Despite the significantly increased competition between different service providers, many municipalities in South Africa, including the countrys largest cities, are implementing their own fibre and wireless broadband networks.
Under a converging regulatory regime, hundreds of alternative service providers are now pushing into the market with converged services. The legalisation of VoIP Internet telephony in 2005 marked the beginning of a fundamental change in the countrys telecoms landscape. Billions of dollars are being invested into IP-based next-generation networks that are capable of delivering converged services more efficiently. Telecom carriers and ISPs are moving into delivering audio and video content over their networks, while in turn the traditional electronic media carriers have discovered the potential of their infrastructure for telecommunications service delivery.
Key regulatory events shaping the market in 2011 will be the complete unbundling of the local loop, the staged reduction of interconnect charges, the auctioning of WiMAX and LTE spectrum, and a deadline for mobile subscribers to register their personal details with service providers under new legislation, which could lead to a significant drop in mobile penetration.
All of the major players are involved in the various international submarine fibre optic cables that have reached the country in the past two years. Following the end of Telkoms monopoly on international submarine fibre-optic cables, the arrival of Seacom as the second international cable in 2009 has brought down the cost of international bandwidth dramatically. A third international cable, EASSy landed in 2010, and more are scheduled to go live in 2011 and 2012.
South Africas Internet and broadband market has finally taken off after years of stagnation due to an expensive operating environment created by Telkom SAs dominance in the fixed-line and international bandwidth market. The new converged licensing regime has created hundreds of companies licensed to offer Internet services. There has been consolidation in the sector which is expected to continue.
With its relatively well-developed and diverse infrastructure, South Africa is also taking a regional lead role in the convergence of telecommunication and information technologies with the media and entertainment sector, promising reductions in telecommunication costs and better availability of information and services. Digital media and social media have reached a level of development to foster an associated advertising and marketing industry. The FIFA World Cup held in the country in 2010 has showcased these developments. While South Africa lags behind other countries on the continent in the development of e-government, e-health and e-learning applications, it is a regional leader in the areas of electronic banking and mobile banking services.
Market highlights: - Forecasts to 2012 and 2015 for the mobile, Internet and broadband market; - Profiles of major players in all market sectors; - 2010 financial results; - Mobile penetration is back below 100%, new legislation in 2011 could lead to further drop; - New regulations for staged reduction of interconnect charges 2011-2013; - 3G mobile broadband surging ahead of DSL; - First LTE trials in Africa; - WiMAX and LTE spectrum auctions postponed to 2011; - Local loop unbundling to be completed in 2011; - Third major international fibre link landed, more planned in 2011/12; - FIFA World Cup 2010 has boosted digital media developments; - Leading market in the region for electronic banking and mobile banking services.
Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.
Key Topics Covered: 1. Key Statistics 2. Telecommunications Market 3. Regulatory Environment 4. Fixed Network Market 5. Telecommunications Infrastructure 6. Internet Market 7. Broadband Market 8. Digital Media / Digital Economy 9. Mobile Communications 10. Forecasts 11. Glossary of Abbreviations For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8ca47e/south_africa_tel ((M2 Communications disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to info@m2.com)).
This annual report provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments in South Africas telecommunications market. Subjects covered include: - Key statistics; - Market and industry overviews; - Government policies affecting the telecoms industry; - Market liberalisation and regulatory environment; - Major players (fixed, mobile and broadband); - Telecoms operators privatisation, acquisitions, new licences; - Infrastructure development; - National and municipal fibre rollouts; - International submarine fibre optic cables; - Mobile voice and data markets, including 3G and 4G; - Internet development; - Broadband, including 3G mobile; - Broadband pricing, fixed and mobile; - Average Revenue per User and churn; - Internet and broadband development and growth; - Broadband and mobile data services and pricing trends; - Convergence (voice/data, fixed/wireless/mobile); - Electronic banking and m-banking services; - Digital Media.
The continents leading telecoms and digital media market: South Africas telecom sector boasts the continents most advanced networks in terms of technology deployed and services provided. In a virtually saturated voice market, four mobile networks Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom SA are competing for market share in the next growth wave, mobile broadband. 3G/HSPA mobile broadband services now rival available DSL fixed-line offerings in terms of both speed and price, and consequently subscriber numbers. 2010 also saw the first trials of the next generation of mobile technology, LTE (also referred to as 4G) in South Africa.
While emerging as the countrys leading broadband providers, the major mobile operators are also branching out into fixed-lines, fibre backbone networks, international fibre connectivity, mobile banking and entertainment in a rapidly converging environment. Fixed-line incumbent Telkom SA has reacted by launching its own 3G mobile network and the countrys first commercial WiMAX service, but various competitors are hard on its heels rolling out the same technology, including second national operator Neotel.
Following years of delays with its licensing, Neotel is gaining traction in the market in competition with Telkom. This, in combination with other sweeping liberalisation measures, also delayed by years, has changed the countrys telecoms landscape fundamentally and brought prices down. In addition, the government has created Broadband InfraCo, a national infrastructure company to provide cheap backbone network capacity to service providers. Despite the significantly increased competition between different service providers, many municipalities in South Africa, including the countrys largest cities, are implementing their own fibre and wireless broadband networks.
Under a converging regulatory regime, hundreds of alternative service providers are now pushing into the market with converged services. The legalisation of VoIP Internet telephony in 2005 marked the beginning of a fundamental change in the countrys telecoms landscape. Billions of dollars are being invested into IP-based next-generation networks that are capable of delivering converged services more efficiently. Telecom carriers and ISPs are moving into delivering audio and video content over their networks, while in turn the traditional electronic media carriers have discovered the potential of their infrastructure for telecommunications service delivery.
Key regulatory events shaping the market in 2011 will be the complete unbundling of the local loop, the staged reduction of interconnect charges, the auctioning of WiMAX and LTE spectrum, and a deadline for mobile subscribers to register their personal details with service providers under new legislation, which could lead to a significant drop in mobile penetration.
All of the major players are involved in the various international submarine fibre optic cables that have reached the country in the past two years. Following the end of Telkoms monopoly on international submarine fibre-optic cables, the arrival of Seacom as the second international cable in 2009 has brought down the cost of international bandwidth dramatically. A third international cable, EASSy landed in 2010, and more are scheduled to go live in 2011 and 2012.
South Africas Internet and broadband market has finally taken off after years of stagnation due to an expensive operating environment created by Telkom SAs dominance in the fixed-line and international bandwidth market. The new converged licensing regime has created hundreds of companies licensed to offer Internet services. There has been consolidation in the sector which is expected to continue.
With its relatively well-developed and diverse infrastructure, South Africa is also taking a regional lead role in the convergence of telecommunication and information technologies with the media and entertainment sector, promising reductions in telecommunication costs and better availability of information and services. Digital media and social media have reached a level of development to foster an associated advertising and marketing industry. The FIFA World Cup held in the country in 2010 has showcased these developments. While South Africa lags behind other countries on the continent in the development of e-government, e-health and e-learning applications, it is a regional leader in the areas of electronic banking and mobile banking services.
Market highlights: - Forecasts to 2012 and 2015 for the mobile, Internet and broadband market; - Profiles of major players in all market sectors; - 2010 financial results; - Mobile penetration is back below 100%, new legislation in 2011 could lead to further drop; - New regulations for staged reduction of interconnect charges 2011-2013; - 3G mobile broadband surging ahead of DSL; - First LTE trials in Africa; - WiMAX and LTE spectrum auctions postponed to 2011; - Local loop unbundling to be completed in 2011; - Third major international fibre link landed, more planned in 2011/12; - FIFA World Cup 2010 has boosted digital media developments; - Leading market in the region for electronic banking and mobile banking services.
Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.
Key Topics Covered: 1. Key Statistics 2. Telecommunications Market 3. Regulatory Environment 4. Fixed Network Market 5. Telecommunications Infrastructure 6. Internet Market 7. Broadband Market 8. Digital Media / Digital Economy 9. Mobile Communications 10. Forecasts 11. Glossary of Abbreviations For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8ca47e/south_africa_tel ((M2 Communications disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to info@m2.com)).
Monday, December 20, 2010
VOIP phone – Is Your Phone Service Secure?
The emergence of security threats to systems follow the growth of VoIP services that provide a highly convenient and cost effective tool to make and receive calls over the Internet. To ensure the security of calls and information, it is necessary to find a supplier that can deal with the various security threats and potential problems. Here are some questions you to ask regarding security and potential breaches.
1. VoIP service is vulnerable to a DNS attack?
Denial of service attacks can clog VoIP servers deny service to other users. Professional VoIP service providers protect against such attacks by using firewalls, redundant servers, and around the clock monitoring.
2. VoIP calls can be intercepted by hackers?
Although not significant, there are always chances for hackers to listen to phone calls over the Internet. To protect yourself from malicious eavesdropping, should the VoIP provider uses encryption tools.
3. If you use encryption, making it Reduce Call Quality?
Processing increases with encryption. The more difficult the encryption, the greater the sound distractions such as noise, echo, and waiting, on call. Your VoIP service providers should adopt the hardware and software solutions that make encryption transparent to the service users.
4. How to test VoIP Services Software against vulnerability to hacker attacks?
To ensure the establishment of the VoIP systems that will resist attacks from hackers, systems must be tested by security experts for defects and potential problems. Known suppliers combines in-house testing and research with outside testing of VoIP systems by security professionals and specialists, to create highly secure system for you.
5. How to install updates and it is a cost involved in it?
Upgrading of VoIP services can bear unnecessary costs on you. Ask prospective contractors for the distribution of patches and how their systems can be integrated with the company’s own software update protocol to keep costs to a minimum.
6. Can stolen VoIP routers be disabled remotely?
A stolen VoIP router can create enormous problems for your business through information leaks. Ask your VoIP providers on how they deal with stolen routers and if they can be disabled remotely for keeping your account information safe and intact. Be aware of a service that cannot guarantee the security of confidential information.
7. For extra safety, it is possible to dial a VPN?
If you need to keep phone conversations private, even from the phone company, opt for a service that lets you make calls through virtual private networks. But keep all data within the VPN involves additional hardware and software costs.
8. VoIP service is vulnerable to scammers and impersonators?
Scammers can hijack the conversation and publish customer service representatives to collect personal account information. Hackers can access an open port and re-sell the minutes of the company’s VoIP account. To prevent these problems from creeping up, the service provider must regularly monitor VoIP service use looking for unusual activity or packet routing to countries with few known clients.
Even after deploying a VoIP service, it is important to ensure that you receive adequate and upgraded security that can tackle newer security threats over the internet. Creating and maintaining strong relationships with account representatives. In addition, stay informed, keep in touch with service providers and regularly check the vendor blogs.
1. VoIP service is vulnerable to a DNS attack?
Denial of service attacks can clog VoIP servers deny service to other users. Professional VoIP service providers protect against such attacks by using firewalls, redundant servers, and around the clock monitoring.
2. VoIP calls can be intercepted by hackers?
Although not significant, there are always chances for hackers to listen to phone calls over the Internet. To protect yourself from malicious eavesdropping, should the VoIP provider uses encryption tools.
3. If you use encryption, making it Reduce Call Quality?
Processing increases with encryption. The more difficult the encryption, the greater the sound distractions such as noise, echo, and waiting, on call. Your VoIP service providers should adopt the hardware and software solutions that make encryption transparent to the service users.
4. How to test VoIP Services Software against vulnerability to hacker attacks?
To ensure the establishment of the VoIP systems that will resist attacks from hackers, systems must be tested by security experts for defects and potential problems. Known suppliers combines in-house testing and research with outside testing of VoIP systems by security professionals and specialists, to create highly secure system for you.
5. How to install updates and it is a cost involved in it?
Upgrading of VoIP services can bear unnecessary costs on you. Ask prospective contractors for the distribution of patches and how their systems can be integrated with the company’s own software update protocol to keep costs to a minimum.
6. Can stolen VoIP routers be disabled remotely?
A stolen VoIP router can create enormous problems for your business through information leaks. Ask your VoIP providers on how they deal with stolen routers and if they can be disabled remotely for keeping your account information safe and intact. Be aware of a service that cannot guarantee the security of confidential information.
7. For extra safety, it is possible to dial a VPN?
If you need to keep phone conversations private, even from the phone company, opt for a service that lets you make calls through virtual private networks. But keep all data within the VPN involves additional hardware and software costs.
8. VoIP service is vulnerable to scammers and impersonators?
Scammers can hijack the conversation and publish customer service representatives to collect personal account information. Hackers can access an open port and re-sell the minutes of the company’s VoIP account. To prevent these problems from creeping up, the service provider must regularly monitor VoIP service use looking for unusual activity or packet routing to countries with few known clients.
Even after deploying a VoIP service, it is important to ensure that you receive adequate and upgraded security that can tackle newer security threats over the internet. Creating and maintaining strong relationships with account representatives. In addition, stay informed, keep in touch with service providers and regularly check the vendor blogs.
From Hype to Reality: Communications as a Service
Communications as a Service. Cloud communications. Hosted PBX. You've heard the terms, and you've witnessed the hype. But what are these technologies? And what will they do for your business?
Generally, a CaaS solution involves your business utilizing the resources, equipment and software of a service provider in its network or data center, as opposed to housing equipment, such as a phone system, at your location.
These services can be accessed by your business over the Internet or via a private connection to the service provider. CaaS solutions generally include all of the features of an on-site phone system, along with local and long distance calling. They also often include telephone handsets and connectivity to the service provider and/or the Internet.
CaaS solutions are purchased like power, traditional and cellular telephones, and cable or satellite TV -- on a per month, (largely) per user basis.
One in five enterprise firms already use managed services for their network and telecommunications needs. In fact, hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) is anticipated to be a US$14.6 billion market in the United States by 2012, with the majority of that revenue coming from companies with fewer than 100 employees.
Here's what you need to know before you join the movement.
Why CaaS?
Productivity and efficiency benefits are viewed as key drivers for VoIP adoption by nearly 30 percent of respondents in mid-sized businesses in North America, Research firm Frost & Sullivan claims. VoIP provides significant productivity features to any business, regardless of whether the phone system is located on the customer site or in the cloud.
Features such as Unified Messaging and PC Integration (pop ups, click-to-dial, call control, soft phone, find me/follow me) enhance your employees' ability to stay in touch with customers both in the office and on the road.
However, purchasing CaaS offers various architectural and financial advantages that cannot be replicated with on-site equipment. It is these advantages, and not simply features, that are driving business communications to the cloud.
During the Industrial Age, factories had to control production and create their own power. As more factories
and ultimately businesses and homes required power, utilities built infrastructure to power them. Factories were (happily) out of the power business. Likewise, IP networks are the infrastructure to power CaaS.
By moving communications to the cloud, businesses can experience many benefits:
In a bad economy, companies do one of two things (or both): Increase efficiency or cut costs. A CaaS solution can uniquely provide both. First, new features mean new opportunities for efficiency. Second, when fully analyzed, companies will see real cost savings in moving to a CaaS solution.
In order to find these cost savings, businesses must evaluate hosted technology offerings in light of their Total Cost of Ownership.
TCO is an often overused and misunderstood concept. Many financial decision makers consider TCO as a
soft or sunk cost argument to making an expensive technology decision. While a poorly formed argument can surely seem that way, CaaS can offer a quantifiable TCO that is generally equal to or lower than the traditional alternatives.
The bottom line is that purchasing any technology as a service provides the following:
There are three main factors that affect the quality of a VoIP deployment: latency, packet loss, and jitter. To avoid these issues and ensure your network (whether LAN or WAN) has sufficient bandwidth to smoothly and flawlessly carry voice, a thorough network assessment should be performed in advance of the implementation.
To size the amount of bandwidth needed to cover your voice usage, you will need to understand the CODEC (Compressor/Decompressor) that your CaaS provider uses. Voice sessions can vary in size from roughly 30Kbps to close to 100Kbps. This CODEC will also dictate the quality of the compressed audio.
Network managers should also be prepared to address end-to-end class and quality of service. Class of Service (CoS) refers to a network's ability to classify and treat traffic differently based on the type of data being transmitted. Meanwhile, Quality of Service (QoS) applies to the standards that can be placed on the classified traffic.
Ensure that LAN switches are managed and capable of supporting QoS. WAN links and service providers should provide bandwidth that honors QoS between sites by utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).
Unlike traditional handsets, which obtain inline power from POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phone lines, VoIP handsets are connected to the Ethernet. As a result, power must be provided through a Power over Ethernet switch (POE) or plugged into the wall.
While these considerations should be taken seriously, they should not be seen as obstacles. A well planned and executed CaaS strategy can deliver call quality ratings similar to or better than traditional implementations. It can also deliver on the productivity and financial advantages that prompted you to consider it in the first place.
Generally, a CaaS solution involves your business utilizing the resources, equipment and software of a service provider in its network or data center, as opposed to housing equipment, such as a phone system, at your location.
These services can be accessed by your business over the Internet or via a private connection to the service provider. CaaS solutions generally include all of the features of an on-site phone system, along with local and long distance calling. They also often include telephone handsets and connectivity to the service provider and/or the Internet.
CaaS solutions are purchased like power, traditional and cellular telephones, and cable or satellite TV -- on a per month, (largely) per user basis.
One in five enterprise firms already use managed services for their network and telecommunications needs. In fact, hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) is anticipated to be a US$14.6 billion market in the United States by 2012, with the majority of that revenue coming from companies with fewer than 100 employees.
Here's what you need to know before you join the movement.
Why CaaS?
Productivity and efficiency benefits are viewed as key drivers for VoIP adoption by nearly 30 percent of respondents in mid-sized businesses in North America, Research firm Frost & Sullivan claims. VoIP provides significant productivity features to any business, regardless of whether the phone system is located on the customer site or in the cloud.
Features such as Unified Messaging and PC Integration (pop ups, click-to-dial, call control, soft phone, find me/follow me) enhance your employees' ability to stay in touch with customers both in the office and on the road.
However, purchasing CaaS offers various architectural and financial advantages that cannot be replicated with on-site equipment. It is these advantages, and not simply features, that are driving business communications to the cloud.
During the Industrial Age, factories had to control production and create their own power. As more factories
and ultimately businesses and homes required power, utilities built infrastructure to power them. Factories were (happily) out of the power business. Likewise, IP networks are the infrastructure to power CaaS.
By moving communications to the cloud, businesses can experience many benefits:
1. Scalability. Since CaaS solutions take advantage of large systems owned by the provider, your business will not have to select hardware or software with the growth (or reduction) of your workforce in mind. There's no reason to throw out equipment because you need to get a bigger boat (or a smaller one).
2. Mobility. Services located in the provider's network are intrinsically prepared to support a distributed workforce at multiple locations or at home.
3. Disaster Recovery. Services located in the cloud will remain up, even if there is a local disaster, power failure, or line cut. When a customer calls the office, the CaaS auto attendant picks up and automatically forwards the call to cellphones, voicemail or alternative locations.
4. Manageability. Because they must support a wide range of customers, with various levels of technical acumen, CaaS providers focus their energies on ease of use. As a result, many hosted solutions are easier to manage than on-site equipment or software.
5. Upgradeability. When the provider adds new features, you get them. No upgrades, no fees, no problem.
6. Satisfaction and Service Level. Once a premise-based system is purchased, there is no going back if users are not satisfied with features, or the level of service is not adequate. A CaaS solution, meanwhile, is rented, and generally comes with stringent guarantees.Costs and Savings
In a bad economy, companies do one of two things (or both): Increase efficiency or cut costs. A CaaS solution can uniquely provide both. First, new features mean new opportunities for efficiency. Second, when fully analyzed, companies will see real cost savings in moving to a CaaS solution.
In order to find these cost savings, businesses must evaluate hosted technology offerings in light of their Total Cost of Ownership.
TCO is an often overused and misunderstood concept. Many financial decision makers consider TCO as a
soft or sunk cost argument to making an expensive technology decision. While a poorly formed argument can surely seem that way, CaaS can offer a quantifiable TCO that is generally equal to or lower than the traditional alternatives.
The bottom line is that purchasing any technology as a service provides the following:
1. Reduction of OPEX: Many direct and soft costs are bundled in with CaaS solutions. These include software/hardware maintenance; moves/adds/changes (MACs); training/certifications; power; cooling; selling, general & administrative expense (SG&A) for extra staff; network services (data, IP, voice); and security and compliance.
2. Elimination of CAPEX: There is no need for upfront capital or the liability of a business lease.In most cases, CaaS solutions can provide new features to your end users at a cost savings over supporting your existing system and carriers.
Preparing for CaaS
CaaS (or any VoIP deployment, for that matter) adds an entirely new responsibility to a business's existing network: adding and moving voice through the network. Voice streams are more sensitive to network congestion than data. While a millisecond delay in delivering a Web page is likely not noticeable, that same delay when delivering a voice packet will be experienced as a stutter or moment of silence.There are three main factors that affect the quality of a VoIP deployment: latency, packet loss, and jitter. To avoid these issues and ensure your network (whether LAN or WAN) has sufficient bandwidth to smoothly and flawlessly carry voice, a thorough network assessment should be performed in advance of the implementation.
To size the amount of bandwidth needed to cover your voice usage, you will need to understand the CODEC (Compressor/Decompressor) that your CaaS provider uses. Voice sessions can vary in size from roughly 30Kbps to close to 100Kbps. This CODEC will also dictate the quality of the compressed audio.
Network managers should also be prepared to address end-to-end class and quality of service. Class of Service (CoS) refers to a network's ability to classify and treat traffic differently based on the type of data being transmitted. Meanwhile, Quality of Service (QoS) applies to the standards that can be placed on the classified traffic.
Ensure that LAN switches are managed and capable of supporting QoS. WAN links and service providers should provide bandwidth that honors QoS between sites by utilizing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).
Unlike traditional handsets, which obtain inline power from POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) phone lines, VoIP handsets are connected to the Ethernet. As a result, power must be provided through a Power over Ethernet switch (POE) or plugged into the wall.
While these considerations should be taken seriously, they should not be seen as obstacles. A well planned and executed CaaS strategy can deliver call quality ratings similar to or better than traditional implementations. It can also deliver on the productivity and financial advantages that prompted you to consider it in the first place.
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