voIP in India/NTOP, etc.
Voip in India/Ntop, etc.
VPN-VoIP: More Than a Network
voicendata.com
Integration of VPN-VoIP with Internet telephony can help reduce communication costs
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Telecommunication has tremendously changed now from Internet using voice-line (analog )connectivity to analog-voice that is based on Net connectivity. In the Indian scenario, the potential of this migrated voice service model is tremendous because of its low expense investment for price-sensitive customers.
ISPs can at last heave a sigh of relief after the legalization of Internet telephony. Value-added solutions for the enterprise as well as the retail market have already been getting responses from international markets even before the legalization of Internet telephony in India. These services are currently being introduced in the Indian market by various ISPs. International carriers like Net2phone, Caltiger and Delta Three are pushing services like private-voice network (PVN) and voice-line services over basic Internet telephony through local ISPs in the Indian market. And these types of different service options take an important space in the mind of the ISP apart from the pricing model in negotiating the international carrier partner for the Internet telephony service.
Using PVN, an enterprise can make intra-office calls as per the local ISP pricing-scheme and subsequently, use the same VoIP gateway to make ILD calls. In a typical scenario, if the enterprise customer has multinational locations and makes frequent international calls, the PVN server can be located in a centralized head office and other PVN clients distributed in other locations can communicate through the PVN server. For making a international call, it will pass though the PVN server at the centralized location as well. The automatic billing server (ABS) along with the PVN server can be located at a centralized location to make the customized billing as per the utilization by the different locations. PVN and ABS are the least-expensive solutions from the international carriers provided by local ISPs to enterprise customers for making national as well as international VoIP calls. A combination of these will be a good business model for a wholesale service provider of both VPN-VoIP and Internet telephony.
Above all, the service that allows small business or residential customers to receive inbound calls and place outbound calls using a high-speed Internet connection. Voice-line allows customers outside of the United States to establish a US presence by setting up a US-based local or toll-free telephone number that can be used by customers, co-workers, friends and family within the US to call them. Voice-line customers can also use the service to place outbound calls to the US and other international destinations for the same billing account, providing a flexible, powerful, and cost-effective telecommunications tool.
The voice-line service can again open the market for call center customers as well in which case the inbound calls will be charged to the call center rather to customer by mapping the toll free number of the customer location with the account. So, the voice-line service over Internet telephony can fully explore the potential as a replacement of IPLC for call center BPOs. Most importantly, it will have an advantage of saving the 20–40 percent expenses that incurred through the deployment one time and operational expenses of the IPLC. That’s one reason why leading ITSP providers are trying to tap the call center market through partnerships with international carriers.
QoS in Internet Telephony that is targeted at the enterprise market is not such a big issue as was earlier. The enterprise customer for an ISP looks for an Internet telephony service served by the 17 kbps PVN from end to end through the international carrier partner. So even though as a tradition its called as an Internet telephony, but practically it’s a service provided by the local ISP with the support from the international carrier that carries voice end to end in a controllable emulated private network.
Benefits of virtual private network-Internet telephony service (VPN-ITS) are:
· Least expensive international calls and better QoS
· Inter-location intra-office calls possible without PSTN integration
· Can accept the inbound calls on the same phone
· VPN-ITS customers can make use of voice-line in providing free outbound call for their customers
· Wholesale service providers can provide the services to retail market by using the flexi-billing plan
· Can access the corporate VoIP network from anywhere for making less expensive international calls
VoIP is no more a buzzword anymore after its legalization and is losing its importance because of significant price cuts through competitive development in the cellular service and basic service domain. VoIP service providers like ISPs are now trying to keep this candle glowing. Through the partnership with international carriers and with their own VoIP network, they are trying to bring various packages that will not only drive the enterprise and retail markets, but also explore the potential in the near future when WLAN and other convergence technologies come into play in the Indian market. |
