The quality of network-testing tools, Horn found, can make a big difference: Few are designed solely for IP telephony. Testing is important not only to head off problems, but also to teach the networking and telecom teams more about VoIP. "We learned a lot from that first site," he says. "There's a definite learning curve."
And there's more than just technology to learn. When something as familiar as the phone changes, expect negative reactions. "It was a 'You've changed my phone' culture shock," Horn says. "It's almost sort of a religious thing." The shock wore off with time, and the people eventually got used to the new phones.
Another challenge is devising a deployment plan that makes the most sense for your company. When insurance company Allstate Corp. began deploying VoIP two years ago, telecom configurations varied widely among its thousands of offices, as did the age of the equipment. Brandi Landreth, senior manager for network and voice solutions, decided the wisest choice was to attack the challenge piece by piece, focusing on offices that had the oldest equipment, such as a tech-support center in Northern Ireland. "Instead of looking at what we have to replace for the entire enterprise, we do a few offices each year," she says.
Who's In Charge?
For some companies, the biggest gotcha is figuring out who should be in charge of the project. VoIP crosses the boundaries of traditional telecom and networking, so including technical staffers from both sides on the deployment team can be a smart move. But don't assume people in one discipline know what the others are doing.