Loud and clear

While voice over IP was heralded as the answer to global communications, many have had bad experiences post deployment. Ravi Pather of Psytechnics explains how to get the best from your VoIP.

CXO. Why are large deployments of voice over IP experiencing quality issues?
Ravi Pather. The primary focus of any voice over IP deployment has always been the initial deployment; configuration, provisioning and management of IPT equipment, gateways and switches and so on to get the service up and running. What has been missed is the concentration and focus on operations and maintaining of the ongoing voice service and performance.  

Enterprises and service providers installing or managing voice over IP services have always installed IPT equipment without appreciating the real issues in operating voice over IP applications or service. The operational systems have not been available from the IPT vendors, nor the traditional IP network management tool vendors. They all talk about monitoring and all use the phrase 'voice quality', yet sadly have little that truly addresses the operational requirements of voice quality and performance from and end user perspective.

In short they don't provide any capability or functionality for operational systems to help you understand when you have a quality issue or help in trouble shooting and diagnosing that issue. This is actually normal for new technology adoption, and it also happened with data networks. The initial focus is on the installation and implementation, or ‘first generation’ deployments. Then the new technologies struggle with managing operational issues. Then operational systems are in demand, so a new industry grows to meet this demand. We can call this ‘second generation’ systems. 

CXO. What existing tools or methods are companies using to manage these voice quality issues?
RP. On the whole, very little that can be considered effective. In most cases, the only time you become aware of voice quality issues is when users complain. We have two large banking customers whose major voice deployments only knew of voice quality issues when the users complained – if they complained at all. The issues arose when the network management systems and monitoring tools from the IPT vendors all say the voice performance is fine. The standard response is then: “It must be a user perception issues because it’s a new voice over IP deployment.”

This is unacceptable. You have to have fit for purpose tools and solutions that provide more than simple network metrics. Existing tools and methods are manual, ad hoc in nature and based on IP network statistics such as packet loss and jitter. The monitoring tools from IPT vendors are element management, dealing with the performance of that device and not the voice service. The tools do not understand voice performance across an entire network from a user perceptive. There is now growing evidence that network statistics are not the answer, and are instead just a small part of the factors that impact the performance of voice. By way of example, the most common issues around voice quality are muffled speech, noise, echo, low speech volumes, dropped lines and so on. These issues will not be detected by packet loss and jitter network statistics, tools from the IPT vendors or network management tool vendors.      

CXO. What does Psytechnics have to offer any company installing voice over IP?  
RP. For the very first time, operational systems that help you manage your voice over IP deployment. We call this voice performance management (VPM). Firstly, we have the right type of monitoring. Monitoring of the voice waveform detects voice issues such as muffled speech, noise, echo and low speech volumes. We then have alarm and alerting systems to prioritise and focus the real voice quality issues, not just packet loss and jitter. We then provide the ability to troubleshoot and diagnose the issue before knowing exactly what to fix. Reporting on any aspect of voice performance is another key aspect of VPM.

CXO. Why should a company be installing VPM as part of their existing and new deployments?
RP. Companies need to do this to address the shortfall in operational systems for voice over IP deployments. Until this requirement is fulfilled, voice over IP deployments will continue to experience first generation quality issues that are unquantifiable, do not reflect the user experience and nearly impossible to detect and diagnose voice quality issues. We see this as the major barrier to mass scale deployment of voice over IP.    

Ravi Pather is responsible for developing and implementing Psytechnics ‘Go to Market’ message and models to spearhead revenue growth, into key European markets for Enterprise, Telecoms and Defense and Alliance Partners.

Ravi brings more than 15 years of seasoned leadership and experience to Psytechnics. Prior to Psytechnics, Ravi opened the Intelliden European operations and grew its multi-million dollar European customer base. Prior to this he was General Manager, Northern Europe for Versata, and contributed towards Versata’s successful NASDAQ IPO in 2000, raising more than $100 million.