So what are the big "gotchas" in VoIP deployments?
Premature vendor choice: Because a lot of the hype and pressure to migrate to VoIP is vendor driven, the decision of which brand of phones and equipment to buy often precedes the more basic decisions about how the new system is going to be used and managed. Making the wrong vendor choice can leave you with a long-term investment in a phone system that doesn't work the way you do.
"Organizations have very strong preferences to use existing vendors," Pierce says. "That assumes that the vendor will be able to deliver functionality for the long term. But the vendor choice should always follow the decision on how you are going to care for the system."
There's no law that says you can't run another vendor's VoIP hardware on top of the single-vendor network that you already own. Moreover, your own capabilities will largely determine which vendor's capabilities, if any, offer the best fit, and a rush to chose a given brand of VoIP hardware can be an unfortunate leap into the dark, Piece says.
"The actual decision about your own capabilities and what exactly you want from VoIP has to happen first," she says. "Only then should you choose a vendor. What if you don't have the in-house expertise, and a hosted system makes more sense in the long run? Then the vendor isn't an issue at all."
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
