VoIP in South Africa – a somewhat muffled user experience

There are rumblings emerging from the midst of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) space – they are the groans of frustrated users who have invested in the technology with little or no guidance and support. Like most other areas of ICT and telecoms, the value of VoIP lies in understanding its correct application.

VoIP is an active market segment. Solution development and an increase in adoption have upped levels of interest. In addition to recapturing the attention of the feverishly busy IT market, this activity has also forced stakeholders – particularly service providers – to look closer at this technology and its place in business.

The playing field is being levelled as more companies experience the realities of VoIP – what it can do for business and what it cannot.

Companies realise that the value in VoIP is not necessarily cost saving, but more predominantly convenience.

In addition to the fact that relevant cost routing has hidden pitfalls, costs are often not understood by the smaller user and not properly explained by the service provider.

And so one experiences frustration and the result is an unhappy user. However, these same unhappy clients enjoy the convenience and added benefits which results in them staying with- or investigating the technology further

At present service in this area is the domain of a few true value-add service providers. There are those that focus on VoIP and others that focus on the traditional landline.

For the most part these services have been upgraded in order to meet the needs of the market. As an example, innovative and forward-thinking companies have started to investigate triple play (running a combination of multimedia including voice, video and data over a single channel) as an add-on to their existing business as the requirements from a hardware perspective are similar.

These providers compete for business by applying innovative implementations and advantages to generate new revenue streams. This is what is driving the market.

Traditional ‘pot’ systems (plain old telephone system) are decreasing and the volume of calls is diminishing on these old systems. The reliability of VoIP is improving through the multiple means of communicating through the internet.

The number of inefficient service providers is diminishing and companies understand that their reliance on this new technology requires additional or advance skills sets to maintain reliability.

This is because there are multiple factors that change, resulting in down time and these factors need to be maintained.

If all falls into place the way it should, the prediction is that in about five years time there will most definitely have been expansion in VoIP, with at least one noteworthy difference – it will incorporate other services such as video, data and visual security.

By Paul Luff, country manager, SMC Networks South Africa