Converged Communications

Sounds like a train wreck and it could be if you don't have the right engineers at the controls; but when properly thought out and deployed a converged system can become a great competitive edge for your company.

Now that I have your full attention; let's loosely define converged communications. Communications is the transfer of information or idea via whatever method possible. Letter, carrier pigeon, flash cards, phone calls, love notes to your 8th grade girl friend, voice mail, video, webcasts... geez the lists goes on and on. It used to be that each method of communicating (i.e. as in the aforementioned example) has their own sets of tools or equipment. For example, to write a letter you needed a pencil and paper; to make a phone call you needed a phone and a number to call; etc.

The relentless progress of technology has allowed us to start to combine some of these formerly separate tools. When you combine and application it is now named converged. A classic example is the ability to be able to capture a voice mail message, have the same appear in a folder in your Outlook Inbox and be able to play it over your PC speakers, archive it or send it as an email attachment to anyone anywhere.

Some other popular converged applications that are gaining popularity and traction are:

• Desktop Web based Video and Audio Conferencing will you a company to provide for remote meetings, demos and presentations using real time feedback and collaboration over the internet.
• Unified Communications or Twinning can bring your cell phone under access and control of your office phone system.
• Tying remote or home worker into your office system using VoIP
• Connecting remote sites or branch offices together using VoIP

These above are just a primer and there are more applications with real user benefit being rolled out every week by Mitel and Inter-Tel engineers.

In a true and wide open converged world you should not be limited to selecting core components like switches and router from one manufacturer for compatibility reasons (phone system makers such as Shoretel limit their customers in this manner) however, it will pay dividends to stay with one platform provider and not try to mix and match individual applications whether they all run on one server or not. For example, don't buy a Cisco Call Manager and try to run a voice mail made by Avaya behind it.

In addition, although VoIP has clearly gained the higher ground for new Greenfield installations it can be a costly mistake not to look for a manufacturer (like Mitel and Inter-Tel) that allow you to move your existing digital phones onto the new IP PBX or Communications server. One last thing, don't forget the need for analog connections. Yes, I am sure that you still have fax machines and credit card terminals in your business. These devices require an analog connection and some VoIP system provides have overlooked their importance and will simple tell you to go buy a single or multiple analog line(s), which you will pay for every month for it, to solve the issue. That will take away from the ROI (return on investment) of your new purchase and decrease the simplicity of your network.

In summary, spend some time pondering how your customer interact and do business with you. Once you have those facts committed to paper pick up the phone and have representative from ProTel NetWorks come and visit to help you explore further.