Indian telecom industry is experiencing a revolution in the
field of converged communication networks. Changes in the regulatory environment
have led to opening up of the market and allowing new forms of converged
communications applications to flourish. Among them the most notable is IP
telephony.
India has immense potential to be benefited by the latest
in the voice technology. The enterprises have truly started to understand the
concept of an intelligent network organization. With the rapid increase in
Internet adoption across the country, we now see companies actively looking for
virtual private network (VPN) solutions.
The Need of the Hour
Unlike today's traditional networks, the shift to IP architecture means
that the enterprise will adopt a standard that the world at large is investing
in. Enterprises are investing significantly in building data highways, but still
they have continued to invest in separate traditional voice infrastructure.
Investments in data communication equipment are increasing as more networked
applications that facilitate enterprise-wide integration, workforce automation
etc. are being implemented.
Companies are now recognizing the need to rationalize these
investments and get more for less. The next step in this evolution is to merge
the two highways and put voice and data on a common IP network. With one network
having the capability of fulfilling all the communication needs, IP is becoming
the need of the hour for the industry.
IP is no longer seen as a strange technology. The Indian
enterprises have reached the optimum comfort level and customers across a wide
spectrum of verticals have adopted this technology. According to Frost &
Sullivan, the IPT applications are expected to grow strongly at a CAGR of 52.3%
between 2004 and 2011. This market is forecast to grow to $38.8 mn by 2011.
According to some analysts, India is expected to show the fastest adoption of IP
applications for the next seven years, having a CAGR of 52.3%. The Indian market
is expected to grow slowly and steadily and is expected to shoot up by 2007.
What Drives IP?
Major business drivers behind IP-PBX and current IP telephony deployments by
enterprises and businesses today included lower cost of ownership and
predictable expenses; flexible and central management of a growing distributed
organization; improved administration; ownership and control; scalability; and
access to new business applications.
Availability of bandwidth is expected to play a critical
role in the development of IP applications market in India. Applications enabled
through the convergence of voice and data on a single IP infrastructure are fast
gaining popularity in the country. IP technology has been extremely successful
in building a very powerful industry centered on contact centers, IT-enabled
services (ITES), and business process outsourcing (BPO).
Drivers of IP |
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An IP telephony system can offer a payback time of about a
year to two, and that is taking into account the substantial drop in the long
distance prices, India has witnessed in the past few years. Lawrence Byrd,
director, IP Telephony and Mobility, Avaya added, “Reduced costs of long
distance calls in India will help people focus on the real benefits of IP which
is simplified and easy management.”
IP telephony enables unification of communications platform
across all locations, irrespective of the access methods. Voice, email, and
video technologies are all compatible and viable options with IP telephony. It
can connect employees across the span of an organization, while flattening and
consolidating the network architecture. This helps companies to deliver improved
functionality across a distributed enterprise and drive down costs by
eliminating unnecessary equipment, administration and maintenance. “IP network
on which data applications and IP based video is carried, organizations see
increased RoI. Thus, there is a shift from deploying multiple networks for
voice, video, and data to a converged IP network, which transports IP based
data, voice and video traffic,” said Ranajoy Punja, VP, Marketing, Cisco
Systems-India and SAARC
Lower cost of communication has an instant appeal for many
enterprises, but the real benefit lies in the applications are deployed on the
IP telephony platform. “The real future of IP lies much more in applications
than the network”, said Byrd.
Evidence suggests that enterprises, which have targeted
revenue enhancement through IP convergence, have gained higher return on income
compared to the communication cost-saving aspect of IP convergence. This has
been possible due to the applications that have been developed over the IP
networks. Byrd stated, “Cost savings from a single network is not that
important, what an enterprise wants at the end of the day, is the applications
that it can run on a network.”
Standards such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) create
a baseline for inter-operability for IP telephony applications. This has paved
way for enterprise-scale deployment in a heterogeneous environment that exists
in most enterprises.
Another key development in the self-service application has
been the VoiceXML (VXML) platform. The key advantages of developing VoiceXML
applications are that the technology provides Internet access to telephone
users, follow an open standard, provides an XML-based markup language, and leads
to speedy development.
Applictaions of IP |
Improved voice
Messaging
Multimedia
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SIP and VXML have led to the development of applications
that are able to manage voice just like any other application on the desktop,
and that can be easily integrated with any other applications.
Another factor that has made IP a logical option for many
enterprises is emergence of managed services. MSPs enable earlier deployment of
new applications and services, and leverage the specialized expertise of the
vendor/channel/service provider to manage complex networks. Punja stated,” We
do believe that managed IP Telephony will be a key revenue driver for SPs as it
allows enterprises to save on communications and administrative costs.” IP
telephony is all set to become the base for future application development.
The Challenges
Despite the possibility of a great future, IP faces certain challenges that
pose as an impediment to its growth. One of the biggest challenges is the
regulatory restriction imposed by the Indian government on the usage of IP
telephony. VoIP remains restricted to closed user groups (CUG).
Relatively high prices of IP phones is another big
challenge. Due to this, the organizations have limited high-end phones to their
top management, snubbing full-scale growth of IP.
Another issue, which needs to be resolved, is
interoperability. All phones, soft phones, gateways, and call managers are not
interoperable as they support some proprietary variant of a standard protocol.
This limits enterprises from free mix and match of components. The usage of open
standards can tackle this issue.
Presently, the management of IP telephony also presents
unique challenges since voice is transported over a data network, which is
shared with many other applications.
What is required is that different components must work
together in this dynamic environment to achieve optimum performance.
IP-based technology has become more stable in recent years,
and issues surrounding reliability, scalability, and quality no longer exist.
The idea of convergence is slowly gaining ground as companies see the economic
and productivity advantages of running their voice, video, and data over one
network.
It is clear that this technology is moving from an
experimental stage to mainstream business, as IP enables effective
communication, which is a concern for an enterprise than saving money.
Sonia Sharma
sonias@cybermedia.co.in