Do you remember the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City? I remember being a wide-eyed 10-year-old boy walking through the many different pavilions with images of “The Jetsons” dancing in my head.
For some reason, I always associated the unveiling of the first videophone with that fair. I remember my brother standing at one phone and me at another across the room and talking while seeing one another on the small telephone screens. I thought this was the coolest thing and I couldn’t wait until we had one at home.
Well, it’s 45 years later and while phones have certainly become a lot more sophisticated, widespread use of videophones throughout our homes is still a long way off. But we are getting closer.
Today’s equivalent of the videophone is generally computer based and runs on a platform known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP (pronounced “voy’p”). Basically, it is another way to make phone calls, but in many cases, the old phone handset has been replaced by a computer or mobile device that has microphones and speakers. The video application is not necessarily an automatic component of VoIP phones, but does reflect the multi-informational nature of the platform—handling both voice and data.
Why Internet telephony?
Beyond sending voice, pictures, documents and video, VoIP takes advantage of the cost structure of the Internet. Unlike traditional phone service, which charges by the minute or second, VoIP calls are charged on a per megabyte (MB) basis. In other words, cost is based on how much information is sent over the Internet, not how long you are connected, which is a significantly cheaper way to price the service.
There are dozens of different third-party products and services in this space, some targeting the consumer, others going after the business market. One such example is Skype, a free service that allows chats between two or more people in your address book. It also supports video calling between computers with high-speed Internet access anywhere in the world.
Finally, for an inexpensive price, Skype lets you call a land line from your computer or mobile device. Skype has millions of people online at any given time that you can add to your contact list (if they accept), so you can use it for both business and personal communications.
Many businesses leverage this type of VoIP service for keeping virtual employees networked in real time. I’ve used it from all over the world; calling home, as an example, from Hong Kong for 2 cents per minute or participating in a conference call from London with people from six different time zones, some participating on a computer and others from the cell phone, all for little or no money.
Skype offers you a chat option, voice calling between computers (with or without video, depending on whether the participants have webcams installed) or calling from computer to land line. All but the last option is free.
Vonage offers one of the many consumer VoIP systems. This service uses your regular phone and high-speed Internet connection with the Vonage device plugged in between, making the link from one to the other. The setup is independent of your computer or operating system.
VoIP can be an ideal financial choice for cutting down on communication and infrastructure costs; first by avoiding the need for different voice and data networks and second, because it still offers all of the traditional features regular phone systems provide like call forwarding, automatic redial and caller ID, without the added costs.
Hello? Hello?
If VoIP is so great and inexpensive, why isn’t everyone switching? Well, there are a few reasons. First, like all new ideas, it takes time for the technology to catch up to the service. To paraphrase Moore’s Law, computing power doubles every 18 months as the cost is cut in half. It only has been in the past few years that computing power and the speed of the Internet have come together to provide the muscle necessary for the Internet to carry all of the extra traffic.
Second—and this, I suspect is still in flux—is the economy of the Internet. Governments are still trying to get their arms around how to tax Internet activities, which is still in its formative stages. Businesses also haven’t quite gotten a handle on what the right revenue models are for Internet sites. So for now, this service is free or very cheap, depending on what you’re doing. As a result, I think some people and businesses are taking a “wait and see” attitude.
Quality of service always will be the bottom line for VoIP and many people are of the opinion that it’s not quite there yet. Much of the quality and consistency of service depends on the speed of your Internet service provider (ISP) and how much bandwidth you have, which is a factor that varies for each agency.
But despite these concerns, VoIP already has achieved widespread acceptance in one form or another and more is yet to come. According to Gartner Inc., “more than 50 percent of the mobile voice traffic will be carried using end-to-end VoIP by 2019.”
VoIP services “offered by third-party application-based providers poses a huge and direct challenge to the $692.6 billion global mobile voice market,” Gartner states. However, Gartner predicted “that despite this significant potential, conditions for the rapid expansion in the use of mobile VoIP are not yet right and are not likely to become right for a least 5 years and perhaps as long as 8 years.”
Does it ring true for you?
There are a lot of check marks in the “plus” column for VoIP, not the least of which is the fact that it’s not an all-or-nothing decision. Because there are numerous ways to dip your toe in the waters of VoIP-ing that don’t cost much, if anything at all, it would certainly make sense to try it.
If you want to start slow and small, select one of the free online services like Skype and begin communicating computer to computer with your remote staff or even some of your more important customers. Consider this: What if your top client was on Skype (and you can search for users on the site)? Wouldn’t it be a great way to provide extra personal service for that key client to be able to connect with you in real time with a quick question or update?
You might say that’s what e-mail and cell phones are for—but how many times have you left voice messages, never knowing if your intended receiver got it, or if your e-mail got trapped in the spam filter?
One of the benefits of VoIP real-time communications that makes the difference between it and e-mail or voice mail is that by looking at your VoIP interface you can tell whether one of your contacts is at his or her computer. If they step away from the computer or it goes inactive for a period of time, their icon on your screen indicates they are “away” or “unavailable.”
Trying the other types of VoIP systems and features is equally easy and requires little in the way of commitment, yet has the potential for great benefit to your agency. However, many people find change is not easy to accept. My father-in-law only this year returned to the phone company the handset he’d been renting for more than 40 years, when I finally convinced him that the cordless phone I bought him at the local electronic store worked as well and wouldn’t cost him his usual monthly fee. Plus, he’s become an avid user of VoIP to keep in touch with his grandson no matter where we travel.
Finally, while VoIP technology is very much dependent on outside factors, like Internet speed and bandwidth, the future of both is only going to get faster and broader. So, unless you’re like Ralph Kramden of the old TV show “The Honeymooners,” who held off buying a television because he was waiting for “3D TV,” now is a great time to test the VoIP waters.