Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

The Worst VoIP Gotchas: Page 4 of 7

 

Small things such as headsets can have a big impact on VoIP systems, Allstate’s Landreth says.

Small things such as headsets can have a big impact on VoIP systems, Allstates Landreth says.

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.