IP telephony evolution promises one person

Are the desktop phones in your office looking a little ragged around the edges? Don't bother buying new ones, says Vox Orion MD Jacques du Toit - they could be obsolete within months.

The need for desktop phones is disappearing

“The growth of IP telephony means the need for desktop phones is disappearing,” says Du Toit. “However it's one person, one phone: your mobile phone can be the only phone you ever need.”

Du Toit says intelligent IP PBX (Private -Automatic- Branch Exchange) innovation can recognise smartphones when they come into the office, automatically routing calls over internal data networks or rather than via cellular operators. “This as well means the mobile phone can nevertheless become a time and attendance management device,” he says.

What has made videoconferencing a viable alternative in the long run, adds Du Toit, is partially the ever-decreasing real cost of bandwidth. “We're getting far more for the same price than we did a couple of years ago,” he says. “Our government has said they want to decrease bandwidth prices by 15% a year, so data will keep on getting cheaper. That means we can get smart with presence management, unified communications, computer-telephony integration and other specialised applications.”

Presence management is particularly exciting, says Du Toit. “With the new IP PBXes like our Vox Verto product, you have the intelligence in a single platform to find people wherever they are, when you need them. This is particularly important when you need to pull a team at the same time in a crisis: You could have people in three different offices, in the airport and on the golf course, and get them at the same time in a collaborative environment within minutes.”

With all the intelligence built into the software to put it more exactly than hardware, which becomes obsolete nearly as in the near future as it's installed, the PBX can become a powerful business and productivity tool, says Du Toit. “If all you want is call routing and voicemail, that's all you need to switch on,” he says. “If you'd like your voicemail forwarded to e-mail, call recording or time-stamped voice recording for legal purposes, you can switch those on whenever you want at short notice.”

Best of all, there is no extra cost associated with extra services. “With Vox Verto there are only two classes of licence - basic and advanced,” he says. “Clients pay per extension, not according to the number of services they are using. This means even the smallest company can enjoy the fact remains that technology as the largest enterprises.”

The top-end corporate market

Vox Orion is focused on delivering complete managed voice solutions to the top-end corporate market. Considered a pioneer in what was known as the least cost routing market, Vox Orion has since extended its solution offering and but prides itself on its technical expertise and technology and is widely regarded as a leading innovator in the telco industry. Vox Orion serves 60% of the top 200 listed companies on the JSE and has significant government contracts, including four provincial governments, SANDF, SAPS and 56 local town councils. Vox Orion has offices in all the major South African cities as so then as nine smaller towns and offers a range of guaranteed savings models within its managed voice solutions offering, also as messaging, telephone management and PABX solutions.