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06.01.2005 - Filling the VoIP, by Barbara Linstrom-Arnold in Gulfshore Business Magazine

A way of transmitting voice or dial tone through the Internet or a private network, VoIP this year truly entered the mass market and is captivating users across the country. But before you become one of the nearly one million users of Vonage or other such services, take heed.

"In the Internet, you can't guarantee quality of service, and your calls can have break-ups," says Peter Seif, president of Synergy Networks. "At the end of the day, that's the most important thing — you've got to be able to communicate clearly and phone calls can't be broken up."

With the way in which Internet "pipelines" are set up in Southwest Florida, VoIP has definite drawbacks as a primary service set up via such public protocol.

"The product is only as good as the underlying infrastructure, and in Southwest Florida, our infrastructure has been neglected for so long that it's going to take a while to catch up," says Steve Ward, president of T3 Communications. "A lot of companies are making decisions because they hear the hype associated with other marketplaces — but VoIP in Fort Myers or Naples is a lot different than VoIP in Miami or Tampa."

In a nutshell, voice is contained in message packets that are transmitted over the pipelines, which demands a lot of bandwidth. When those limited-capacity pipelines become busy at peak periods, they can collide and drop packets.

"In the evening, when everybody comes home and is downloading their MP3s and DVDs and whatever, the number of collisions goes up. With data, there's an automatic resetting so you don't see the result of those collisions," says Ward. "But, with VoIP, those packets can't be reset, so you get static and drops in the conversation."

However, in private networks, such drops can be controlled, and clear communication can be guaranteed.

"We can prioritize the voice packet and say that the voice packet is more important than a regular data packet, and that's why the quality is there," explains Seif. "We provide the support and the network."

Setting up VoIP through such private networks is a great fit for businesses in Southwest Florida, he adds.

"The management is just incredible," says Seif. "There are so many different applications — you can prioritize what numbers you want to come through, which ones to be sent to your voice mail, which ones to your cell phone. And you can manage it all online."

Aside from such management capabilities, VoIP also offers major cost savings because long distance charges, tariffs and surcharges don't come into play.

"The biggest reasons that people are getting into VoIP are the man­ agement aspects and the reduction of costs between locations — if you have multiple locations and you call a lot, it makes a lot of sense," says Seif, adding that setting up such a system roughly costs $200,000 or more.

The other advantage of having VoIP set up through a private network is security.

"No one can hack into it — it's not across the public Internet," says Ward, adding that hosted systems can be more affordable for smaller businesses.

"These new generation phone systems allow multiple facilities to act as one — you get the features and flexibility of a PBX system at the cost of about $100 per phone," says Ward.

Businesses with multiple locations benefit from such private network systems by seamlessly transferring calls from Naples to Fort Myers or in the case of some businesses, from Naples to other locations around the country.

However, because such private networks don't tap into the traditional phone lines, they can't be plugged into 911 systems.

"It's not a lifeline," cautions Ward. "Don't count on it for that — you don't want to have loss of life because you dialed 911 and they couldn't dispatch to the proper place."