Phone Meets Computer
VoIP phone systems have computer and phone companies vying for market share
Voice over IP office phone systems, which integrate phone calls into the networks that carry email and computer files, are no longer the province of geeky early adopters. And there's a battle shaping up in Central Massachusetts over the VoIP market.
According to Mark Krzywicki, senior communications consultant for The Computer Guys of Natick, sales of VoIP phone systems climbed 86 percent nationwide over the past two years, while sales of traditional phone systems dropped 50 percent.
"I think people feel it's emerging technology," Krzywicki said. "It's not. It's established."
VoIP blurs the line between computers and phones, and companies on both sides are scrambling to keep up. Krzywicki said the phone systems are the fastest-growing part of The Computer Guys' business. At the same time, traditional phone system companies are shifting their emphasis to the VoIP systems.
Alphabet Soup
When businesses talk about adopting VoIP, they may actually be thinking of two different technologies. IP-based phone networks, known as IP-PBX, route calls over an office computer network, but companies that use these systems may still use regular phone lines to communicate with the outside world. SIP trunks, on the other hand, let businesses extend their use of VoIP beyond their walls and get the kind of cheap service that companies like Vonage are selling to residential customers.
Barry Gerhardt, CEO of Barry Communications in Worcester, said 90 percent of the phone systems his company sells today are IP-PBX.
Systems featuring SIP trunks still represent less than half the company's sales, he said, largely because phone carriers don't always offer enough bandwidth to provide consistently clear lines. Over the next few years, he said, products like Verizon FiOS will become more available, making it possible for more companies to use SIP trunks.
Unlike SIP trunks, IP-PBX systems don't save companies money on their phone bills, and they are 30 to 40 percent more expensive than traditional phone systems. But they have some significant advantages too. For one thing, they tend to be easier to administer than traditional phone systems, so a company can use a web browser to move or add extensions.
"They're not calling companies like mine to come and move people anymore, so in that sense the costs are going down," said Bob Mitchell, owner of Business Communication Systems of Worcester, a phone systems company that currently sells about as many IP-PBX systems as traditional ones.
Another major advantage of VoIP is the ability to use company phone lines from all kinds of places. Employees can answer their extensions from home or remote offices, on phones plugged in at hotel rooms, or even on their cell phones. And connecting phones and computer systems allows for all kinds of extras, like automatically recording conversations for security or training purposes.
Brian Baird, senior regional manager for Altigen Communications, the manufacturer of phone systems The Computer Guys sell, says IP-PBX today is much like voice mail was in the late 1980s: companies that buy systems without it may be sorry before long. That's what Mitchell says he tells prospective buyers as well.
"Maybe right now they don't need the inherent functionality of Voice over IP," he said, "But things change, business models change, and down the road they could."
Something's Gotta Give
Baird said his company sells its products through both computer and phone system companies. While prospective buyers may automatically look to the place they bought their last phone system when it comes time to get a new one, he said computer companies may have a leg up on VoIP since they already work on the networks that the new phones use.
To Mitchell, the difference is that phone systems demand more customization than computer networks.
"It seems like computer tech is a science and telephony is an art," he said.
Ultimately, though, Mitchell agrees that companies that work on phone systems and computer networks cannot remain separate for long.
"It makes sense to have one company service the phone systems and the network," he said. "That's the approach we've been taking. We're getting more into networks."
Both Baird and Mitchell said the people who are most likely to be hurt by the new technology are "trunkers," single-person phone system operations that sometimes run out of the back of a car.
"They're going to hang on as long as they can, but eventually they're going to be dinosaurs," Mitchell said.
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