Real-World VOIP Migration
by Lenny Liebmann

Published May 2001

Abstract:

Analysts may argue over the pace of market growth for voice over IP (VOIP) or the ultimate viability of convergence as a strategic architectural imperative, but some enterprise technology managers are moving ahead with real-world VOIP implementations. They're doing so for their own reasons, which often vary greatly.

Despite the differing drivers for early VOIP adopters, certain patterns can be discerned across their migration strategies. Some organizations are completely overhauling their voice infrastructure and implementing a full-scale VOIP transition—although they typically operate their legacy phone systems in parallel before flipping the switch over to VOIP.

Others are taking a piecemeal approach, piloting VOIP at specific offices or departments and/or limiting deployment to installing an IP PBX rather than going "whole hog" with IP phones on the desktop as well. Still others are more cautious, leaving their entire voice and data infrastructures intact and simply installing VOIP gateways to route a very specific subset of their voice traffic over public or private data nets.

Real-world examples of VOIP migrations point up these different migration approaches and should be quite instructive to those who dismiss VOIP out-of-hand, as well as to those who believe it is a market inevitability—but aren't sure exactly how we are gong to get from here to there.

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