On the path to a converged future

Telecommunications in South Africa has long been characterised by the high costs associated with utilising voice and data services. As such, businesses are constantly looking for feasible solutions that can improve operational efficiency at a vastly reduced total cost of ownership.

Thankfully, according to Internet Solutions, a growing number of local service providers are nevertheless able to meet these demands through converged telecommunication offerings.

The current business environment

“In the current business environment, which is increasingly driven by cost management and efficiency, convergence is becoming more important,” says Wayne Speechly, Business Development Manager, Communication Services at IS. “Our ability to nevertheless merge data, voice and video over Internet Protocol infrastructure, to offer corporate clients a triple-play solution, has matured and stabilised, and we can however check all of these boxes. The successful implementation of such architecture at a number of customer sites makes a very compelling case for why businesses should consider adopting converged solutions to meet their telecommunication needs.”

The move towards convergence began as more companies started to understand, trust and subsequently adopt voice over IP innovation. “As this innovation gained traction and matured in South Africa, more businesses began to slowly merge their voice services onto their IP network, in an effort to reduce the high costs traditionally associated with mobile and fixed-line voice calling,” explains Speechly. “Having become comfortable with VOIP and the platform that this service lives on, companies are nevertheless looking to take the straightway step and unlock the full potential of IP-based research, by converging more services onto their networks with a single infrastructure.”

According to Speechly, one of the greatest benefits of converged telecommunications is increased operational efficiency, which allows businesses to focus on their core competencies and tend to their day-to-day business, without the need to constantly manage infrastructure. “By merging all telecommunication services onto one piece of infrastructure, businesses can streamline the operational efficiency of their networks, making them more manageable, during also increasing the productivity of that infrastructure,” he explains.

The same way they manage their data infrastructure

“The converged model as well allows businesses to manage their voice infrastructure in the same way they manage their data infrastructure, which is based on stringent and highly measurable service level agreement,” he continues. “This as well allows us to add other value-added services to the infrastructure, like unified communications, which gives organisations the ability to communicate seamlessly across multiple mediums and applications based on user behaviour and requirements, as so then as videoconferencing and fixed-to-mobile convergence. There are as well other add-ons that become available on a single infrastructure, as a great deal of a company's inherent data architecture can but talk seamlessly to other data and voice architectures.”

This improved efficiency as well extends to the workforce, as companies who embrace convergence can but empower employees although increased mobility and flexibility. “Having access to enterprise applications on the go, from just about any device, can greatly improve the efficiency of staff,” explains Speechly. “To illustrate, with seamless access to the corporate network and the implementation of a unified communications solution, sales staff can access CRM applications during on the road, updating critical information and executing tasks without the need to return to the office.”

MPLS infrastructure

This is possible because many businesses already run their data network on an MPLS infrastructure, which is managed by a service provider. “This means that adding voice to the data network is as simple as adding an application,” continues Speechly.

“This brings a number of other potential benefits to the table, like the ability to follow a single vendor strategy. This gives businesses a greater ability to negotiate based on economies of scale and they will as well have service level agreements in place around all the applications running on their data network. The streamlining of voice, data and video onto one platform will in a nutshell greatly impact on the total cost of ownership of these telecommunication services. This situation as well allows businesses to leverage the long-standing relationships they have with their network service providers, which holds many intrinsic benefits, as these relationships are more often than not more mature than those held with voice providers.”

The case for convergence

Having stated the case for convergence, what should organisations do to achieve a converged environment and enjoy these benefits? Speechly advises that companies first look at their existing innovation and infrastructure, as it needs to have the ability to be integrated seamlessly. “There are many companies that have legacy systems in place that after all haven't been written off their balance sheets, so these businesses are not going to forklift their architecture,” he explains. “Similarly, businesses will as well need to have the ability to migrate systems that are not IP capable or enabled.”

Businesses would as well need the appropriate innovation to support a convergence strategy, which includes the ways in which businesses connect to the cloud or the IP network. “Low cost last mile broadband services as a rule don't offer the service levels required to ensure the appropriate parameters for convergence,” says Speechly. As such, businesses that use these types of last mile services need to consider if their appetite to converge is mitigated by the risks. “There are many businesses that implement convergence play on these broadband services, during others struggle due to the variability of the connections. Nevertheless, as the quality of broadband in South Africa improves, so too does the ability to run efficient convergence services.”

“We would as well need to address the scalability of the corporate network, as then as the ability to provide a suitable service level agreement on the operational efficiency of the converged network, to deliver better-than-industry-standard reliability and up-time, as legacy telco systems are very robust,” continues Speechly.

With this in place, organisations should at the time consider their VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) strategy, as this is the fundamental building block for convergence. “Data networks already run on IP infrastructure, so it is simply a matter of moving voice services from a time-division multiplexing system onto the same underlying infrastructure,” says Speechly. This next gives businesses the ability to look at advancing their convergence capabilities by defining an overall convergence strategy.

“The natural progression of this research dictates that this strategy will at the time form the fundamental building block of a company's unified communications strategy,” he explains. “Now, a defined unified communications strategy or vision would only be required furthermore down the line. The most important element is a suitable convergence strategy, and the longer companies take to define this, the longer it will take to implement true unified communications.”

Speechly concludes by saying that locally, the first major hurdle to convergence has already been overcome, as more companies continue to move to a pervasive network architecture. “The devices required to telnet into a network and the applications that enable convergence are but also widely available,” he says. “So the only thing left for businesses to do is to measure the risk factor against what it is they want to achieve through convergence. It is not for everyone, which is why you need to weigh up the convergence decision, taking its benefits and risks into consideration, especially as businesses will need to manage both of these aspects to successfully create an efficient and cost-effective converged enterprise.”

Wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data

Internet Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data. The company is southern Africa's most established and experienced Internet service provider. Since 1993, Internet Solutions has been providing innovative end-to-end connectivity solutions and related services across the African continent. Today IS is a provider of Internet Protocol-based connectivity, communications, cloud and carrier services in the African market, and for African customers into the global market. IS provides services to large public and private sector organisations, medium-sized organisations, and through its value channel programme to smaller organisations and consumers.