posted 15 July 2002 11:57 AM               

having being asked to investigate a Voice over IP solution for a small international solution.

I have started wondering why it is that the Video conferencing companies/vendors are not more heavily involved in promoting a related technology.
H.323 voice presumably could be quite a good addon or "toe in the water" to full voice & video.

Given that virtually all the VC hardware available is capable of being a audio device, why not throw a few voice devices into the mix?

Say....
"Mr Prospect, with this solution we provide you with two Polycom Viewstations and 8 POlycom IPphones.
This will allow FREE video and voice collaboration.
Using your Polycom/Accord MCU we can give 3-way calling fro both voice AND video. We can also gateway BOTH voice and video calls out onto ISDN(PSTN)
Now isn't that great?
Yes.... good sign on the dotted line!"

Just a thought.

My other question is seeking some avie for the solution I am investigating.
I sm seeking low cost voice over IP solutions. Cheap IP phones, relatively cheap IP-PSTN gateways, etc.
Salepeople contact me now!!
[what am I thinking :-) ]

posted 15 August 2002 06:13 AM               

The scale of change is also significant in that the use of IP since it is not an insignificant exercise to apply some IP stations and integrate these with POTS. The change to all IP in most companies is not an option.

I'm convinced IP is going to happen, but won't happen first with the potentially mission critical phone call.

More likely and infrastucture decision will be taken which drives the deployment of a number of 'rich media' services and thus endpoints.

posted 15 August 2002 07:23 AM               

Take the endpoint itself, to put a IP Phone on the desk is about $200 USD. Given I can pop down to virtually electronics store and buy an analog phone for about £10 UK it's not really difficult to work out which one makes the best choice.

So total IP telephone is a big choice to make, not suitable for all but the big companies.

Small companies I suspect will struggle to find a cost effective solution.
The best option for these size organisations seems to be the gateway solutions with either FXS or FXO ports. (preferable one would think both)
Again these are not cheap.

Similarly to VC, if the smaller organisations can't afford to play, they won't and the growth of the market slows.

Lance.

posted 16 August 2002 11:04 AM               

I think you will find big companies are doing exactly what you are suggesting.

By using the right choice of IP components to create services where their Voice over IP calls are simply videoconference calls with the video switched off . The bueaty of this is your contact details remain the same no matter what the connection device or where you are in the world.

If you find any cheap IP phones or PSTN gateway thats not OpenGateway based let me know too .

jason.

posted 16 August 2002 11:14 AM               

I agree completely, as I mentioned in a new thread I created in the watercooler area. We have done a trial using Compaq iPaq's (with wireless lan cards) to talk to the VC kit.

Worked fairly well for a device not suited to it. (ie no echo cancellation)

Using our (you guessed it OPen h.323 gatekeeper) we were able to simply drive to another college and turn the iPaq back on. It DHCP'd a new lan connection and registered to the gatekeeper and lo and behold the e.164 number worked still.

FAB!

But yes, VoIP hardware is too expensive.

posted 16 August 2002 11:18 AM               

OK not a tenner closer to £60 ... but ...

Could you plug a USB VioP device into a PC?
or must they be stand alone ? as the CLA-I750 Claritel is only $89.95 rrp

jason

posted 16 August 2002 11:33 AM               

Keeping the PC out of it would be nice.

The gateway solution looks the cheapest to me in ways for smaller setups.

Whack some cheap analog phone directly into a cheap gateway and away we go.

posted 16 August 2002 11:43 AM               

Found one for you !, give me a buzz ;-)