VoIP Industry Newsletter: How to Select VoIP Technology

How to Select VoIP Technology

When you choose VoIP technology, you make decisions based on reliability, scale, maintenance, and cost. Choosing the technology you will rely on to build and maintain your revenue-generating telephone and telecommunications services is complicated. In many ways, this process is becoming more difficult with consolidation in the manufacturer market, the proliferation of low cost ‘all-in-one’ systems, the allure of open source ‘free’ options, and the increased complexity of the technology behind phone service offerings. In this article, I will discuss the variables VoIP carriers, operators and service providers should consider before spending considerable time and money investing in new technologies.

As a VoIP managed service provider for numerous VoIP technologies, I have had the opportunity to speak with over two hundred small- and medium-sized carriers and service providers who have reached a critical inflection point, one where they are betting part of their future success on technology and technology vendor selection. From our vantage point at VoIP Logic, we have the scale and up-time sensitivities of a large aggregated pool of carriers that requires us to select only best-of-breed systems backed by large software development and Tier 3 support engineering teams with track records of successful production operations. We eliminate as many potential weaknesses in our technology selection, location and deployment. Admittedly, depending on budget and requirements, you might be able to economize in ways that meet your expectations – hopefully this short article and the accompanying worksheet will help you to make an assessment based on your unique situation. In any event, understanding the variables is the start of any thoughtful decision.

The first step is to detail what you are trying to build with the new technology. This should include how the services will work from your first day in production and what you intend to add in subsequent upgrades. These requirements can be formulated into an RFI/RFQ - Request for Information / Request for Quotation. Creation of and subsequent responses to this document allow you compare what you are being offered according to YOUR goals, and not the marketing agenda of a prospective vendor. The standard variables to cover are budget, timeline, competitive offerings, feature requirements, legacy system integration requirements and in-house prior experience.

Next you should create a spreadsheet to track all responses from potential technology vendors in a number of categories or use the one we have put together (see below). Broadly speaking, there are tangible variables you can score fairly objectively like cost and technical features, and there are a number of intangibles where scoring might be more subjective like quality of support or market perception.

For commercial considerations, there are a number of variables, including CAPEX: capital equipment purchases required, technology software cost, ancillary hardware and/or software costs, cost of professional services deployment, cost of integration/customization, training and speed of deployment. You should also consider growth cost, cost of new features and payment terms. Some of the intangible variables are vendor ‘stress test’ (viability), word-of-mouth and feedback from existing customers both referred by the vendor and un-referred.

For technical assessment, you are looking at what the capabilities of the technology and how you can expect it to be supported and maintained. System features, redundancy options, ease-of-use, open architecture and recovery options are all relevant variables. There are also numerous points to consider regarding support and maintenance, including the following: support SLAs, historical response times to critical system issues, Web-based tools for case management, knowledge base, escalation requests and useful documentation that details both common tasks and system administration.

Assessing development capabilities is a sub-set of overall technology assessment, but it deserves to be highlighted. To make a prudent decision, you must thoroughly understand where the technology and manufacturer have performed on release schedules, patch production and against roadmap. And, reviewing APIs to confirm they are well documented and in multiple production environments is critical if you want technology that can grow with you. For example, is there is a robust developer community? What have been the most successful applications of the technology? Or has the vendor created something even more advanced like an app store/marketplace such as the one Broadsoft’s Shirish Andhare describes later in the newsletter? These are indicators of the vitality of an actively developed and deployed technology.

Finally, it is well worth considering a broad range of success variables, including how many overall deployments have been accomplished and how many production deployments, end-points, ports, virtual ports or other unit of consumption currently exist. And, is there research on market share, industry reputation, and future business focus? These data points are valuable. It can also be informative to test another operators’ production deployment of the technology by signing up as a customer and taking it through its paces.

We understand that managing all these variables is complex, so we have built a tool for your use.

There is a cliché I hear frequently, and it goes something like this: VoIP services providers and carriers are never valued for the technology they choose, but rather, by a multiple of the revenue that they generate. The message is often understood as technology cost should be as low as possible because it is not a revenue center. In reality, your technology selection and deployment is your line of defense AND creates potential for strategic growth and expansion. Sure, you want to minimize cost so you can invest in marketing and sales, but you also need a level of performance certainty and ability to adapt that keeps you in the game.

micah@voiplogic.com
Micah Singer, CEO

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