Keeping a good technology down

Next month the first African radio frequency ID (RFID) conference is scheduled to take place in Sandton to examine various aspects of this technology, which is only now receiving serious attention even though it has been around since the 1940s.

The recent focus on RFID has drawn my attention to a similarly anomalous situation regarding voice over IP (VOIP). Although it has not been around as long as RFID, VOIP is another technology that has tremendous potential for improving efficiency and reducing cost, but has yet to succeed in gathering significant momentum.

While RFID has been held back mainly by a lack of international standards, high tag costs, and certain technical issues that have made implementation impractical, the growth of VOIP seems to have been impeded by entirely different factors.

Technically, VOIP has been practical since around 1998. In the intervening years, VOIP has become an increasingly attractive alternative to traditional PABX telephone systems. Not only does VOIP offer the attractive benefit of toll bypass, but it also enables the delivery of telecommunication systems that are easier to manage, have greater flexibility, and have much lower operational costs.

Wolfgang Held, network consultant for 3Com SA, points out that by converging voice and data networks, the cost saving in cabling alone provides a persuasive argument in favour of VOIP, without considering the gains in efficiency and productivity. Why then is application of VOIP still relatively uncommon?

One rather simple explanation is probably close to the truth. Pax Andersson, international VP for 3Com, recently said VOIP`s lack of progress was mainly due to confusion in the channel.

Held agrees. He says the biggest challenge presented by VOIP is that it is a hybrid between voice and data. In other words, it is neither one nor the other. Held believes this has resulted in confusion, not only in the channel, but among customers as well.

Ironically, then, the very nature of this technology has been its downfall. IT departments in big organisations have no PABX knowledge and have therefore shied away from VOIP since the beginning. Similarly, operations departments have shunned VOIP because of their lack of IT knowledge.

Resellers in the channel have been faced with the problem of not knowing which departments within organisations to approach as well as being on the receiving end of resistance from both IT departments and those operations officers who have experience only in PABX.

Held says resellers in the VOIP channel need a particular set of skills to implement and support VOIP to be effective, requiring knowledge in the areas of voice service provisioning as well as data networking.

While RFID is waiting upon the establishment of an international standard, the future of VOIP seems to depend on cross-skilling channel resellers, who also need to be trained to interact with the IT and operational departments of organisations at various levels as well as educate potential customers about the benefits of the technology.

Getting real about VOIP is long overdue. 3Com has tackled the problem by setting up a voice solution partner programme to ensure all resellers have the necessary knowledge and diversity of skills to implement and support VOIP.

Given the right conditions, we could see another revolution similar to the one that followed the introduction of cellphones.

Warwick Ashford, technology editor, ITWeb

In SA, restrictive telecommunications legislation has muddied the waters even further.

Local organisations have undoubtedly hesitated to pursue a VOIP-based strategy because of concerns over legality. Although the International Telecommunications Users Group has concluded that SA legislation hinders attempts to deliver affordable telecoms to the people, the good news is there are several legal VOIP options open to organisations that can still result in considerable savings.

As long as calls carried by a VOIP network do not leave that network more than once, they are legal. In other words, a Johannesburg office could legally connect over VOIP to a Cape Town branch and then break out to a customer, but connecting from a customer site in Johannesburg to the local office and then over VOIP to the Cape Town office and breaking out to a customer site there, would be illegal.

Educating organisations about the various legal options will surely result in greater interest in using VOIP, but there is still another local obstacle to consider: the perennial SA problem of expensive bandwidth. Toll bypass may be attractive, but there is little point if the bandwidth required is more expensive than conventional telephone charges.

Given the right conditions, we could see another revolution similar to the one that followed the introduction of cellphones. In fact, with the arrival of software applications that enable communication between laptops and PDAs using VOIP, some commentators are predicting that VOIP could soon pose a serious threat to cellular operators.

So although it seems it is possible to hold back a good technology, there are encouraging indications that VOIP at least will not be held down for much longer.

There is hope that pure economics and business sense will eventually prevail and the demand for the benefits of VOIP will grow to such an extent that it will be impossible to stem the tide.

If all else fails, there is still the possibility that the second national telecommunications operator will be able to drive down costs and force government`s hand, but I wouldn`t bet on it.