What is VoIP?
There has been some confusion amongst communications professionals and customers alike as to the use of terms like “VoIP”, “Internet Telephony” and “IP Telephony”. For the purposes of this website, the term “VoIP” is used to define the technology, which underlies BT Hosted IP Telephony.
However, in a more general sense, the following are definitions of IP technologies to aid understanding:
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Internet Telephony or Voice over the Internet or Voice on the Net – Mainly used by residential users with PCs (and perhaps USB handsets). PCs with IP telephony software, internet access via dial up or access via broadband which allows calls to bypass PSTN tolls. BT Communicator is an example of this type of product.
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Voice-over-IP – Traditional digital TDM phones connected to a PBX which itself is connected to a VoIP gateway or includes an integrated VoIP gateway card, both of which transition Voice data from TDM transport to IP transport, allowing conveyance over an IP VPN.
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IP Telephony (IPT) – Covers the area of IP Phones on the desktop implicit is a telephone feature equivalence (more than make a call and have a voice conversation), potentially voice/data convergence with IP applications, including voice, video, and data. The term has been associated with IP PBXs provided by a Carrier, or Service Provider, or Customer, and often located within an enterprises building. Cisco's Call Manager is an example of an IP Telephony product.
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BT IP Telephony (or Hosted IPT) - MM VoIP or VoIP Port are examples of IPT products which are hosted off-site by a Carrier. BT uses the marketing term "BT Hosted IP Telephony" to describe both MM VoIP, IP Voice and VoIP Port as these share a common BT-located service platform.
Why are some of the Call Manager features not available with BT MM VoIP?
BT only releases a feature for service when it has been completely tested on its hosted IP Telephony platform. In addition, BT is market lead and will therefore only develop, test and release a feature where there is such a market demand. If a feature is required, please contact your Account Manger.
What other IP phones can be supported?
Currently BT supports a range of the Cisco IP phones. This situation is constantly under review so contact your Account Manager for an up to date range.
Can analogue phones be supported?
There are a number of devices that will support analogue phones, ranging from a single-port IP phone gateway to a 48-port analogue gateway.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/pcat/ata186.htm
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/gatecont/ps2250/index.html
What quality levels can I expect from Hosted IP Telephony?
Extensive testing of the VoIP voice quality has indicated that the voice quality will be better than that achieved on a good quality mobile call. To minimise the amount of CoS1 bandwidth required, BT strongly advises customers to compress their voice across their WAN. The ITU standard for voice quality measurement is based on its Mean Opinion Score (MOS) algorithm. MOS is rated on a scale of 1 (noise) to 5 (perfect quality), with “Toll Quality” generally accepted as 4 or better. The CODEC used by MM VoIP to compress voice across the WAN is G.729a, which produces a maximum theoretical MOS of 3.92. Customer experience has proved that this is an acceptable level for business use. In addition to MOS, MM VoIP service is monitored against other quality benchmarks. MM VoIP users should expect to see the following minimum quality standards:
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MOS score of 3.7
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Jitter of no more than 25 ms
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Packet Loss of no more than 0.5%
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Round Trip Delay of less than 150ms
Customer experience has proven that these standards are exceeded in most calls made.
How much new equipment needs to be purchased to install VoIP?
The customer will be offered the ability to use their existing WANs (this includes a number of possible infrastructures, ranging from IP VPNs to DIY WANs) to deliver the voice traffic. The customer will then be able to deliver IP directly to their desktop (i.e. over the LAN), allowing them to benefit from the 'value-add' of IP applications.
It is important that the LAN and WAN infrastructure can support "Quality of Service" (prioritisation of Voice over Data) and Class of Service (for IP VPNs, reserving a portion of the available bandwidth for voice at any one time). Depending upon the current LAN equipment, it may be necessary to upgrade existing LAN infrastructure.
The Hosted IPT service is network-based, so customers will need to purchase access to the service, or buy a bundled services offering.
The product may require the customer to purchase new customer premises equipment, primarily IP phones or PC soft phones.
If the customer wants to inter-work with legacy equipment, then a gateway will be required.
How easy will it be for customers to add on sites/take sites off and take care of moves and changes in their organisation?
The customer as an entity will need to register and configure their individual users when they first purchase the service. The user can do simple changes like changing speed dials and adjusting ring tones. More complex additions or changes (like changing DDI numbers) should be carried out through the BT Account Manager and will incur a charge. However, due to the nature of VoIP, the majority of these additions and changes can be carried out quickly and easily
How will calls be routed?
Calls within a customer's network will be routed over their LAN and WAN infrastructure. A signal is sent from the calling party to the Hosted IPT Call Servers which allows the latter to set up the real-time communications path. This path routes directly between the calling and the called parties.
Calls to and from traditional networks such as the PSTN will be routed via the BT Hosted IPT platform.
What protection/gateways have been put in place? Additional resilience?
The products, networks and supporting systems are designed to BS7799 standards, with robust access control policy.
The platform makes use of firewalls to guard against unauthorised access to BT's network infrastructure and components. Further, a Security Management Team has been incorporated who respond to Incident Management Procedures, and the platform uses a comprehensive Backup Policy to be able to restore from most major incidents. As a final measure, a comprehensive auditing policy is used to identify inappropriate activity. For more information please see the Hosted VoIP security white paper.
If the network goes down does this mean I lose both my voice and data?
One of the key benefits to VoIP is to enable business customers to consolidate their voice and data network into a single infrastructure. Since the data network now carries voice as well as data, businesses will need to address how the current capabilities and limitations of their data infrastructure. In particular, how it offers resilience as the voice will now depend upon the availability of the data network.
BT offers resilient WAN products to ensure that VoIP can achieve the appropriate level of availability. Alternatively, ISDN resilience options can be discussed.
Does Hosted IPT offer any new applications?
Multimedia VoIP allows end users to take advantage of new ways of working. This includes multimedia collaboration tools, such as “White boarding”, Document Sharing and Video. This will enable business customers to reduce a lot of their indirect costs of travelling to meetings, and the ability to be able to react to business changes and drivers more rapidly. Other applications using XML can be created by the customer themselves, or by BT for a premium.
How much voice and data can I put on it? Any limits?
The only limit is the size of the WAN. The underlying data network will need to be appropriately dimensioned to carry both voice and data traffic. Each voice call equates to about 24Kbps of bandwidth on MPLS, and 40.2Kbps on ATM, including WAN overheads.
How are orders placed?
Orders are placed through your BT Account Manager. A Customer Requirements Form (CRF) needs to be completed, and a project manager assigned. The appropriate LAN/WAN upgrades need to be ordered in parallel.
Will multimedia Numbers run in parallel with non-geographic numbers?
Customers can specify whether they want to run any of their existing geographic numbers in conjunction with the new Multimedia number range that has been allocated to this product. After an initial connection fee, the first year is free of any charges. After the first year, there will be a small quarterly charge per line for doing this.
What BT Network products will be appropriate for BT Hosted IPT services
Any products that support Quality-of-Service can be used for this product. In the UK this is currently Cellstream or Class-of-Service enabled IP-VPNs like BT Equip, Metro, and IP Clear. Outside the UK, BT MPLS, BT Frame Relay and BT ATM are suitable.
Will BT Hosted IPT customer services inter-work?
It is planned to be able to inter-work the BT VoIP services between business customers, allowing the full capabilities of VoIP and Multimedia to inter-work between users of different VoIP services on an “Extranet” basis. Special call rates are available for this type of call. Point-to-Point Video calling on an extranet basis will become available in CY2005.
How will the service appear on the bill?
The service will include configuration, subscription and call charges. These can be integrated into existing BT “One-bills”.
Tariffs/prices - what can a customer expect to pay - PPM, connection?
The pricing of the service is very competitive. Contact your account manager for more information.
Will a customer bill be separate for voice and data calls?
The product will be billed separately to the access pipes that the customer has purchased. Billing will be integrated with business customers' existing billing options - this may only be by finally printing a consolidated bill. It will also be possible for business customers to use their normal payment options.
What are the cost savings? For example on rental?
Cost-saving will be at its greatest where organisations make a lot of on-net calls between sites. Savings can be achieved as only one infrastructure is required, no IP PBX is required, and no in-house management is needed.
Why should I incorporate both my voice and data?
The arrival of VoIP will create the opportunity for new applications and new ways of working that will affect all key areas of an organisation's activity.
- Infrastructure and maintenance savings. The advantage of incorporating both voice and data is that it saves the customer money in that s/he only has one communications network to monitor and maintain. Planned upgrades, infrastructure investment, personnel resourcing, and even facilities management all becomes more straightforward with an integrated network.
- The most efficient Use of Network Resources. In addition, the combination of voice and data on one network makes for more efficient use of the bandwidth available within the customer's LAN/WAN.
- Combining voice and data on an IP network is an applications enabler. The inevitable globalisation of business will see the activities of a company's employees becoming increasingly dispersed. Voice and data integration will offer applications that provide more personalisation, making us feel less restricted by spatial separation.
- Customer Care. Future services like Web-based call centres where the customer is required to understand complex information, neither web nor phone may be suitable in isolation. Combining the two technologies ensures that the customer sees relevant information yet can ask questions and discuss issues as necessary.
- Knowledge Sharing. Incorporated Voice and Data allows telephones to be closely integrated with directory access applications. This allows workers to fully utilise corporate information services, and promotes better inter-working between employees.
- Customer Relationship Management. Where help is needed to reassure the customer in an e-commerce purchase, customers want to talk to a real person with information at their fingertips, not to be redirected to a frequently asked questions page. Giving customers access to call centre agents from the e-commerce web page could make the difference between winning a sale and losing to a competitor. Also, integrating voice and data enables companies to deploy IP Contact Centres to further enrich their customer contact.
Does it cost in for smaller companies?
This depends on how many sites the customer has and how many calls between sites he makes. There is a requirement that the customer is able to scale to 100 users within 6 months of taking on the service. This will cost in for such customers.
Why should I use BT - my data router vendor has also offered me a service.
BT Hosted IPT is a unique offer:
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BT has an end-to-end solution capability
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BT has an impressive background in delivering cutting edge technology solutions utilising the expertise in its world-renowned laboratories at Adastral Park
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BT has a proven background in both voice AND data communications
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BT offers a strong capability for integrating with existing voice and data platforms
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BT offers dedicated national support
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BT offers national coverage (subject to individual site survey)
What is BT's position in the VoIP stakes?
BT's investment in an IP infrastructure shows that BT is committed to VoIP. It is also committed to ensuring that VoIP will work with our existing products. ICT is at the key of BT’s product strategy – both for itself and for its customers. BT is deploying 30,000 IP Telephones for its own use, and always installs IP Telephony at new sites.
What is BT's USP in this arena?
Apart from it’s product range and experience, Effectiveness, Efficiency & Increased Productivity - by providing the customer with a complete electronic solution which accommodates both large and small sites.
What is the worst for my business if I don't go VoIP?
Loss of business to VoIP technology-enabled competitors
Additional cost and difficulties with controlling a dispersed workforce with traditional technologies
Lack of price competitiveness when compared to VoIP-enabled customers with their associated lower cost bases will lead to a drop in sales
You will miss out on a golden opportunity to enhance, and rationalise your organisation's communications and data infrastructure/policy for the new millennium.
My business Interfaces directly with customers what can VoIP offer me?
Customer Relationship Management.
Where help is needed to reassure the customer in an e-commerce purchase, customers want to talk to a real person with information at their fingertips, not to be redirected to a frequently asked questions page. Giving customers access to call centre agents from the e-commerce web page could make the difference between winning a sale and losing to a competitor.
Customer Care.
Services like Web-based call centres where the customer is required to understand complex information, neither web nor phone may be suitable in isolation. Combining the two technologies ensures that the customer sees relevant information yet can ask questions and discuss issues as necessary.
Is the VoIP gateway included?
No, Customers may have existing LAN maintenance arrangements and choose to purchase a wires only WAN product. In this can they may be able to insert a Voice card in an existing router with the correct software build for VoIP. Where they have no arrangement, the router choice will depend on voice signalling requirement and the size of their connection, (channels to be supported)
Does VoIP Port support DPNSS features?
The initial release supported DPNSS sections 1-6, simple call set-up. With the MGCP enhancement, other features will become available.
Which IP PBX's are supported?
At this time Cisco AVVID has been verified to work with BT VoIP Port.
