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Will VoIP Kill the PBX?
gManZboy writes "Following up on their last VoIP article, Queue just posted "Not Your Father's PBX?" from Jim Coffman at Avaya Labs. Looks like the PBX may survive, but it's going to have to evolve considerably. I guess eventually corporate telecom goes away as a kind of island in the MIS dept? Maybe that's already happened?"
not in the US anyhow. not with fbi wiretapping provisions staggering adoption.
And what praytell will be responsible for your complex dialplans (routing) or giving access to client SIP phones? PBX's aren't going anywhere but *of course* they have to evolve, it is amazing they have remained sedantary for so long.
If you wonder where the PBX is heading look at the simple office copying machine. They used to make copies. Now they make copies, colate, autoscale, create PDFs on the fly and then fax the results to someone while storing the PDF somewhere AND emailing a copy to a lit of people. The PBX of next year will integrate even more so than the one's of today in a cheaper, faster way.
The PBX isn't going extinct but many of the specialized lockin systems and consultants may.
--- I do not moderate.
When someone who *doesn't* work for a telecom manufacturer starts saying stuff like this, I might listen.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
From my experience over the past several years it's been getting closer to making a big jump. My company has used Avaya products for awhile now, going back to the old AT&T Merlin line even. They have a good selection of VoIP products.
To me the biggest stumbling block is how that traditional PBX'es are more hardware-centric and VoIP is more software-centric. Which do you think traditionally has been more reliable?
Consider mean time between failure rates for tradtional PBX voice services. Then consider a typical VoIP environment. I don't have hard figures, but I would imagine there's still a vast difference. Imagine a facility using VoVPN then extrapolating it out a little further.
If there are cost savings to VoIP and the PHB's for a company are placing that as a higher priority than reliability and security then perhaps things will continue to move toward VoIP. But I personally have worked as both a telco and a data tech and I think that traditional PBX'es are still more bulletproof than newer VoIP packages. If I'm wrong I'd be happy to hear...
Is it just me, or is the boy still crying wolf? Wasn't VOIP going to take over in 1998? I'm not saying it's not an excellent technology, nor am I implying it won't take over PBXs, but the article is no different than any other 1998 Voice IP is Here, all your pbx are belong to us! articles. Seriously, what's the hold up?
But the savings in being able to lose an entire cable infrastructure has tipped the balance.
If it is already there, why count not using it as a savings? The cables are already laid and it is a sunk cost, which shouldn't factor in.
Also, what that means is that you are more likely to lose all of your communications if one delicate wire is cut, rather than "just" losing phone or internet. We have some variation of VoIP. The problem here is if our T1 line goes down, we don't have telephone access either, and we might be losing a lot more sales opportunities as a result.
There's no special wiring involved anymore, the terminals (phones) are computers in their own right, connected to the enterprise IT network, speaking IP.
It's not an island, it's part of the modern IT infrastructure.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
There's no way the phone companies are going away because they'll just con you into using their service to keep dsl. I have DTV & a cell phone. I have no need for a phone line or cable television.
But when I get broadband I can either pay $55/mo. for DSL & Phone or $60/mo. for DSL w/out phone service. Cable is $70 w/Internet or $60 for internet alone.
Because you no longer have to physically move lines when you do move, adds, changes, there is no need to run new lines to new locations, and there is no need to add it to new sites. The fact of the matter is that you lose voice service if your T1 goes down if the interfacing device is an NBX or a classic PBX, or do you put both voice and data through a single T1, that seems kind of stupid.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I use my copier multiple times a week, we keep paper records for anything financial.
I use my fax ALL the time, because if I need to send a physical document to someone, EVERYONE has a fax machine. If they have a fax server, than they get it electronically.
My phone system CANNOT go down. If a server goes down, people get coffee and get back to work, plus their already open documents are fine and they can save locally until it comes back up. If the phone system goes down, no sales are taking place.
The sales guys that bring in the money into the company aren't going to tolerate ANYTHING but reliable telephony. However, the "vritual PBXes" give the appearance of hardware, the flexibility of software, and a roll-out in the middle.
I can upgrade my Ethernet-based PBX with a few hundred software upgrade when I want new features. It's better than a hardware roll-out, but ultimately, it uses dedicated hardware for interfacing with the world.
Alex