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 Learning Objectives

Why this seminar?

While the VoIP (Voice over IP) hype for the consumer market is in full swing (e.g. look at all the hype about the acquisition of Skype by eBay), we're post-hype in the corporate market. Many companies and public institutions are announcing or implementing large-scale migrations, and for new greenfield situations, Voice over IP is a no-brainer. The advantages of scalability, usage of one single network for Voice and Data and easier maintenance outweigh any remaining doubt about sound quality, service level and robustness.

However, also for companies with an existing telephony infrastructure, IP telephony is an option. Growth in work force, relocation, setting up new branches, all of this can be the trigger to implement a mixed VoIP-PABX solution.
And last but not least: the convergence of Voice and Data enables new functionality: flexible solutions for mobile workers, "intelligent" phones (as a device or software-based) that are capable of handling metadata and application logic, and the integration of phone calls as just another data-input stream for CRM or ERP-like applications.

But decisions about corporate telephony aren't taken overnight: users do not accept the slightest glitch when it's about telephony (compare this with software applications, where failures seem to be taken for granted!). Vendor choice will determine your strategy for the coming years, and, as always with young technologies, there's the risk of expensive proprietary systems lacking long-term prospects.

This is why we have set up a vendor-independent seminar that includes a thorough overview of the technology and its opportunities, and considerations on product and strategic choices. A real-life case-study will illustrate the issues at stake.

What questions will be answered during this seminar ?

• What are the advantages of VoIP over traditional telephony ? What are the risks and drawbacks?
• What is the history of the players in this market, what are their strengths and weaknesses and their future strategy?
• Do I have to choose for a pure VoIP solution or a hybrid VoIP/PABX?
• What additional functionality do I get with VoIP? What is the extra cost and the effort required to implement it?
• How do I calculate the ROI of a migration? How to quantify the extra functionality offered by VoIP?
• What about external telephony: what are the consequences after switching to VoIP internally?
  

Who should attend this seminar ?

• IT managers who want to be prepared for strategic choices in Voice and Data integration.
• Telecom managers searching for a vendor-independent overview of internal VoIP solutions
• Application developers searching for an overview of VoIP technology and possible applications built on IP telephony

Please do not hesitate to send further questions to seminars@itworks.be.

 Full Programme

• Telephony: how did we get to where we are now?
• What is IP telephony, what is VoIP? Is there any difference between these two phrases?
• IP telephony versus traditional telephony
• The case for IP telephony
  

• Data-Voice convergence and mobility as drivers behind VoIP
• IP telephony: concepts explained
• IP telephony protocols
• Voice quality and voice compression
• Components of a corporate IP telephony solution
  • Call server
  • Media gateways
• Desktop devices
  • IP phones compared to traditional phones
• Softphones

In this overview the solutions and terminology of the main suppliers (Alcatel, Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, Siemens) will be examined.

• The network
  • Power-over-Ethernet (PoE)
  • Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Bandwidth
• IP telephony in different setups:
  • a single site
  • multiple sites
  • branch offices
• Reliability
• Security

• Classic functionality within IP telephony
• Voice-data applications
  • computer-telephony integration (CTI)
• The IP phone as a data terminal
  • Voice-data conversion
  • Voice-internet applications
  • Application development
    

• Business case:
  • The "Real-Time Enterprise" and employee mobility
  • Why network convergence?
  • Advantages of IP Telephony
• IP Telephony architecture at TVH:
  • LAN/WAN infrastructure
  • Call Processing using Cisco Call Manager
  • Clients : 300 fixed Cisco 7940, 250 wireless Cisco 7920 IP phones and 150 Cisco IP SoftPhones
  • Applications : Contact Center, IP IVR
• CRM integration:
  • Linking inbound phone calls to CRM functionality
  • Making phone calls from within the CRM application
• Integration with the MobiNetCall Alarm System
• TVH phone applications:
  • XML services : favourites, contact lists
  • Making phone calls from within the Intranet
• Integration with company branches in France, UK and Australia
  

• What to do before starting a VoIP project?
• How do I know that my enterprise is VoIP-ready?
• Issues to take care of after implementing VoIP
  

• ROI: "Hard savings"
  • Cabling
  • Power
  • Network infrastructure
  • Telecom costs
  • Operational costs
  • Maintenance
  • Virtual office
• ROI: "Soft savings":
  • Productivity at individual and organizational level
• Migration scenarios
  • Guidelines and Best Practices
    

• Market trends
  • Messaging
  • Communication centers
  • Voice over WLAN
• The market in the near future
• Summary and conclusions
  

 Speakers

Questions about this ? Interested but you can't attend ? Send us an email !