On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 12:11:59PM +1000, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> Glen,
>
> I am now a user of VoIP - against my will, it was a corporate
> decision...it's not dead but it damn well should be. Shot and buried at
> midnight in an umarked grave is my vote.
... some not very good experiences deleted ...
This all sounds like a criticism of an implementation, not of the
technology. Of course, many of the cost justifications for VoIP
assume a cheap implementation where that usually needs the words "and
nasty" appended.
We too have tried VoIP and found it unsuitable *for us*. Our
cost/benefit analysis directed us to a more traditional PBX rather than
persuing VoIP further. But I'm not going to bit-bucket the entire
technology just because the cost/benefit to do VoIP properly doesn't yet
work for a company in our current circumstances.
> One of the IT industry's worst habits is to pitch emerging technologies on
> the basis of "buy now, we'll make it work sometime".
I agree with you on this point. IT vendor hype does sometimes
outstrip reality.
> OTOH, the VoIP system has needed an NT+SQL Server expert, a telephony
> expert, a router expert, and some weeks of installation, implementation,
> tuning, complaining, promises, and "it will get better when we upgrade the
> routers".
Again, implementation. Many PBX vendors are incorporating VoIP into
their products and most, if not all, of this detail is hidden in
exactly the same way their inter-PBX trunking protocols are hidden -
fairly open, but most people don't have to worry about it. Telco
vendors are generally better at doing this than IT vendors ;-)
rik.
--
~ Specialists in IT Infrastructure ~
* Managed Services * Consulting * Product Supply & Support *
Rik Harris The Fulcrum Group of Companies
Chief Technology Officer Level 8, 628 Bourke Street
ph: +61-3-8601-6100 Melbourne VIC 3000
fx: +61-3-8601-6199 Australia
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