January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Roadblocks to Business Grade VoIP (OS-03) Presented by: Joe Rhem President and CTO Star2Star Communications January 2007

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Summary This presentation covers the obstacles to achieving a business grade reliable, high quality and secure VoIP solution. Issues such as network reliability, bandwidth availability, Jitter, echo, failed hardware at the end user site, failed infrastructure at the network operational center and security problems will all be highlighted. Each of these obstacles has an architectural, technological or best practice that solves the problem. The audience will also go through the design of a solution that can provide high reliability, high quality, and secure Internet based VoIP service for any business (small and medium business included). Joe Rhem, President and CTO Star2Star Communications

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The Way People Work has Changed Companies have spread out and outsourced parts of their organization More and more employees are working from their homes The cell phone has become an important part of the business communications process Broadband Internet access is now serving most small to medium businesses and has become another important part of the communications process There is now an anytime, anywhere expectation for staying in communication whether we like it or not

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The Only Thing That Has Not Changed Is The Phone System…

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The Traditional Phone Companies Have Changed but for the Worse Degrading analog lines Customer Service unaware, uncaring, and under-staffed Overpriced No new features in the last 30 years

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Lack of Features and Too Much Money Small and medium businesses have had to either opt out of sophisticated phone systems or invest a disproportionate part of their budget to get traditional features. Small and midsized businesses have been continuing to pay the traditional phone company twice the value for their phone service than they need to. Taken together the lack of modern features and the incredible expense of these systems makes them a poor choice.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida But They Will Keep Trying Just because traditional phone systems and traditional phone service lack features and are tremendously overpriced does not stop sales people from trying to convince you that you should keep buying those solutions.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Not All Internet Phone Solutions Are Created Equally

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Three Architectures that Do Not Work for Business Traditionally there have been three ways to implement VoIP for small and medium businesses. Consumer Grade Internet Phone Solutions VoIP PBX Manufacturer with Third Party Internet Phone Service Hosted PBX with Internet Phone Service

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida You May Have Seen Consumer Grade Internet Phone Service Offered on the TV VoIP, better known as Internet Phone Service, has been offered to consumers as a cut-rate service from cable companies and consumer oriented VoIP providers advertising on the television. These consumer grade services save money but lack the feature set, quality and reliability that a business requires.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Avoid A Science Project Recently you could purchase a VoIP PBX from one company and tie it to Internet phone service from another company. This approach is more of a science project than a solution and lacks features as well as quality and reliability. So much so that many VoIP PBX manufacturers are recommending more expensive traditional phone service with their products. Company A Turns a PC Into a PBX Company B Provides Internet Phone Service at Some Level Internet

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Hosted VoIP PBX Over the Internet Another option is a completely Hosted PBX with VoIP Phone Service over the Internet but this lacks quality without an expensive T1 line and actually costs more over time than traditional phone service. Internet

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Each of These Approaches Has Certain Drawbacks They lack Features There are Quality issues There are Reliability issues You do not Save any money over regular business phone service

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Quality Issues Must eliminate echo Must eliminate (almost all) jitter Must work equally as well on any Internet connection including DSL and cable Must use no more than 30 Kbs per call Must not drop calls Must manage bandwidth and data priority issues on the Internet Must manage bandwidth and data priority issues on the local LAN Must avoid poor phone equipment quality

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Reliability Issues Internet goes down at customer site for extended period Internet connection may go up and down Cable cuts occur Power outages happen ISP modem may need to be reset from time to time A PBX is based on PC technology has a high failure rate with moving parts, hard disk, etc. Internet may go down at SIP provider SIP provider might go down SIP provider might lose a component SIP provider may not have Tier-1 data center SIP provider may use a third party low bid SIP wholesalers SIP provider may not use carrier grade hardware

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Saving Requirements PBX should start at under $400 plus $50 per port Setup should be web based and easy enough for the phone administrators to control features themselves in real-time. A two week long consulting contract can cost $10,000. Phones should cost between $100 and $200 depending on quality and features. The days of the $500 phone are gone. Must be able to use DSL and Cable reliably with high quality calling or it does not save any money. Must be able to get 33 calls across DSL or 66 on T1 or it consumes too much bandwidth per call which translates to more cost.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Meeting The Challenges of Delivering a True Business Grade Internet Phone Solution Requires an Single Integrated End-to-End Architecture

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Only an End-To-End Architecture Delivers a Business Grade Solution Over the Internet

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida It Requires an End-To-End Approach to Deliver Powerful Features

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Find-Me/Follow-Me

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Call Routing Have the option to add as many phone numbers as you wish (not phone lines). Setup multiple companies, departments or personal numbers. Each can behave differently when people call or after business hours.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Voice Menus and Recordings Create an unlimited set of voice menus leading to individuals, departments, recordings, custom applications, or other menus where destination can include other locations. Have the option to have menus professionally recorded for you.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Support For Ring Groups and Call Queues at Multiple Locations Create a group of extensions where the phones all ring together or where calls are automatically distributed to the next available agent. This must support home offices... and multi-locations to give your business the most flexibility in these changing times.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Your Phone System Should Allow You to Customize Music On Hold Upload your own MP3 or WAV files to customize Music On Hold. Customers On Hold are your captive audience and you should be able to make custom recordings.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Your Phone System Should Integrate with Outlook and Your PC Your cell phone, PC and office phone systems should all dial from the same list of contacts in Outlook. Click and Call any contact so you do not have to dial the same phone number twice in your lifetime.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Voice to Never miss a message: Voic should be accessible through as well as through the phone system.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 911 Support Make Sure That Your VoIP Solution Fully Supports Making 911 Calls From Your Office Phone and Remote Extensions

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Business Grade Customer Site Components

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida You Can not Deliver Business Grade Service without an Integrated PBX on Your Premises If you have more than 4 phones you need a PBX on site (should cost $400 or less) Support Users Support DSL, Cable or T1 Support VoIP 2.0 Features 100% Solid State (no moving parts/no PCs) QOS, 729a Codec Monitored 24x7x365 Self Healing If you have more than 100 phones then you need a larger PBX which cost around $1500 Support 500 Users Support Up to 4 T1 Lines Support VoIP 2.0 Features 100% Solid State (no moving parts/ no PCs) QOS, 729a Codec Monitored 24x7x365 Self Healing

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The VoIP Phones Should Be Full Featured Business Phones

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The System Must Still Support Analog Phones, Fax Machines… Even Other Phone Systems

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Business Grade VoIP Service Over the Internet

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Superior Quality Requires Having Control of Both Ends of the Connection

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The Service Should be Housed in a Tier-1 Data Center The Data Center houses the core telecommunication infrastructure for a VoIP solution. It should be a Tier-1 facility and have multiple redundant fiber loops and multiple carriers POPs.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Business Grade Systems Require End-To-End Monitoring and Service Desk Around the Clock Online System Monitor Automatic Detection of Quality or Reliability Issues Service Tickets Should Be Created by Automatic Detection, from a Web Site or By Calling an Around the Clock Support Center

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida To Guarantee Reliability You Must Control the Data Center and Customer Site

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Data Center Reliability Requires Total Redundancy 100% Redundant Cisco Network at Tier-1 Data Center Powered by Redundant Connections Inergen Gas Fire Suppression System Redundant Environment Control System

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida The Solution Should be Connected By a Nationwide Network of Tier-1 POPs Service should extend far beyond a providers core infrastructure in the Data Center. When you make a call, your vendor should be able to determine the best quality route for your call and send your call through that route to guarantee the highest possible call quality.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Savings

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Only an End-To-End Solution Can Actually Cut the Typical Business Phone Bill in Half VoIP Service with an End-To-End approach with Business Grade Service over Cable and DSL will cut the typical business phone bill in half If you buy the system you will get a quick return on your investment Some vendors offer financing as low as Prime +2 When you finance the system you can usually save enough on the phone bill to completely pay for the brand new phone system and phones with little or no additional out of pocket expense

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida How to Switch To Business Grade VoIP

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Step 1: Get Out Your Old Phone Bill How many lines? How many phones? Do you want to keep your old phone number? Will you keep at least one analog line? Do you have a broadband internet connection?

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Step 2: Get a Quote From a VoIP Dealer Have a Local Dealer Create a Quote

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Step 3: Place an Order With the help of a Local Certified Dealer some VoIP vendors offer an intuitive web wizard to determine how your system will work. Fill out and fax the number porting document Include a copy of a recent phone bill Select Payment option (Lease, Purchase, Credit) Sign the Service Contract

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Step 4: Run a Side-by-Side Test Run your old system (incoming calls only) and the new VoIP system (outgoing calls only) side-by-side Most vendors offer a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee if you are not completely satisfied with the solution Old Phone System Internet Phone Solution Side by Side Test

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Step 5: Trade-In Your Old System Many vendors will accept your old system as a trade-in. This saves you even more money.

January 23-26, 2007 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Question and Answers