Voice & Data Integration

The Multi-service Networking group of Harmonix Technologies defines and implements computer telephony tactical and strategic system architectures. It provides practical and proven methodology to complete thorough technical and non-technical information and business assessments. Harmonix provides “collaborative” voice & data network systems architecture services that include:

Technical System Design - Defining and uniting current and future business information needs and objectives with computer telephony technology and existing systems.

Interoperability and Infrastructure Design – Providing high-quality computer telephony solutions by leveraging our electronic mail, LAN/WAN, client/server, workflow, and other networking technology integration experience.

Computer Telephony Integration - Harmonix Consulting can help you plan and implement such systems and functions as:

• Unified Messaging
• Information and Video Teleconferencing
• Telecommuter and Work-at-Home Architecture
• Telephony-Based Client/Server Automated Information Retrieval
• Customer Relationship Management Integrations
• IVR and Speech Recognition Solution

What are the Benefits of Voice over IP?

VoIP can facilitate tasks and deliver features and functionality that might be cumbersome or costly to implement when using traditional PSTN.

1. More than one phone call can be transmitted on the same broadband phone line. This way, voice over IP can facilitate the addition of telephone lines to businesses without the need for additional physical lines. This makes VoIP systems much more scalable.
2. Features that are usually charged extra by telecommunication companies, such as call forwarding, caller ID or automatic redialing, are often included as standard with voice over IP technology. What’s more, they are much easier to configure and manage.
3. Unified Communications are secured with voice over IP technology, as it allows for the use of software and applications, like Avaya. Such solutions offer a whole range of communications features such as voice calls, video, instant messaging, conferencing and even live website communications.
4. Used with a modern communications solution, users can take their office phone number with them wherever they go, all they need is internet access. They’ll be able to access and make use of the company phone system from their mobile device, laptop or tablet.
5. A voice over IP solution provides significant cost savings over a traditional phone system. Users can take advantage of free calls and low rates for international calls and long distance.
6. Organizations can boost customer service with applications which offer features to boost agent productivity and efficiency. What’s more customers have the ability to connect with the business through a variety of channels, as well as make use of free calls to contact centers.
7. It’s much easier to work with remote workers when your business has a VoIP software communications solution in place. Extensions can be added easily without any fuss and employees can be added to the company phone system no matter where they are located.
8. Fax machines are an outdated device that most businesses are getting rid of. But for those who are fonder of simpler times, many modern communications solutions offer fax to email, which is facilitated by VoIP.
9. Whole systems are easy and cheap to implement. Without the need for extensive amounts of infrastructure, VoIP communications systems can be deployed quickly and without much cost. What’s more, with mobile apps and web clients, there’s no need for desk phones or expensive devices, making it ideal for small businesses as well as larger enterprises.
10. With a broadband internet connection, a good VoIP service can provide excellent call quality with very little downtime.

Voice Readiness

The decision to incorporate new and innovative technologies will have a direct and significant impact on the existing communications infrastructure. Adding voice or video to your current network infrastructure will expose any deficiencies in your current environment. Harmonix Technologies believes that carefully researching and documenting the existing network environment will ensure the success of the integration of the new IP Application

Our teams will:

• Determine if your data infrastructure can support the integration of IP telephony
• Review your existing network topology and determine potential bottlenecks
• Analyze the impact of voice and/or video
• Communications
• Provide detailed drawings and inventory of the existing infrastructure

The Voice Impact Study

The Voice Impact Study is a proactive service to help you prepare for the impact of convergence on you existing communications and data infrastructure. Harmonix Technologies will provide detailed information regarding the impact of voice/video/data integration on your network by helping you to understand:

• Bandwidth, response times and potential delays
• The effect data traffic will have on voice or video applications and vice versa
• Voice gateway trunking required to support IP Telephony
• The requirement of Layer 3 switching
• Physical Layer Structured Cabling Requirements (Category 6)
• Trunk requirements, potential capacity, data topology issues and utilization analysis

On existing LANs and for multiple site customers, the impact on WAN communication links:

• Recommend changes to the network configuration to optimize your data network efficiency
• Allow flexibility to assess any sized network, whether single site, multiple site, or enterprise
• Right size your WAN PSTN Capacity

We offer Voice Readiness Assessments in three varieties:

• Single Site LAN Assessment
• Multiple Site LAN/WAN Assessment
• Enterprise LAN/WAN Assessment

Future of VoIP

Several factors will influence future developments in VoIP products and services. Currently, the most promising areas for VoIP are corporate intranets and commercial extranets. Their IP–based infrastructures enable operators to control who can—and cannot—use the network.

Another influential element in the ongoing Internet-telephony evolution is the VoIP gateway. As these gateways evolve from PC–based platforms to robust embedded systems, each will be able to handle hundreds of simultaneous calls. Consequently, corporations will deploy large numbers of them in an effort to reduce the expenses associated with high-volume voice, fax, and videoconferencing traffic. The economics of placing all traffic— data, voice, and video—over an IP–based network will pull companies in this direction, simply because IP will act as a unifying agent, regardless of the underlying architecture (i.e., leased lines, frame relay, or ATM) of an organization’s network.

Commercial extranets, based on conservatively engineered IP networks, will deliver VoIP and facsimile over Internet protocol (FAXoIP) services to the general public. By guaranteeing specific parameters, such as packet delay, packet jitter, and service interoperability, these extranets will ensure reliable network support for such applications.

VoIP products and services transported via the public Internet will be niche markets that can tolerate the varying performance levels of that transport medium. Telecommunications carriers most likely will rely on the public Internet to provide telephone service between/among geographic locations that today are high-tariff areas. It is unlikely that the public Internet’s performance characteristics will improve sufficiently within the next two years to stimulate significant growth in VoIP for that medium.

However, the public Internet will be able to handle voice and video services quite reliably within the next three to five years, once two critical changes take place:

• An increase by several orders of magnitude in backbone bandwidth and access speeds, stemming from the deployment of IP/ATM/synchronous optical network (SONET) and ISDN, cable modems, and x digital subscriber line (xDSL) technologies, respectively
• The tiering of the public Internet, in which users will be required to pay for the specific service levels they require

On the other hand, FAXoIP products and services via the public Internet will become economically viable more quickly than voice and video, primarily because the technical roadblocks are less challenging. Within two years, corporations will take their fax traffic off the PSTN and move it quickly to the public Internet and corporate Intranet, first through FAXoIP gateways and then via IP–capable fax machines. Standards for IP–based fax transmission will be in place by the end of this year.

Throughout the remainder of this decade, videoconferencing (H.323) with data collaboration (T.120) will become the normal method of corporate communications, as network performance and interoperability increase and business organizations appreciate the economics of telecommuting. Soon, the video camera will be a standard piece of computer hardware, for full-featured multimedia systems, as well as for the less-than-$500 network-computer appliances now starting to appear in the market. The latter in particular should stimulate the residential demand and bring VoIP services to the mass market—including the roughly 60 percent of American households that still do not have a PC.

Today’s Communications

Telecommunications today is undergoing a revolution, with the distinction between voice, video and data networks rapidly blurring. Converged communications refers to the integration of voice and data, allowing companies to create powerful communication solutions for today’s flexible and changing work environments.

The key to this convergence is Internet Protocol (IP), the transmission protocol capability of handling both voice and data. Converging your network with IP communications solutions enables “anytime, anywhere” communication abilities, giving employees an unprecedented level of mobility and timely access to information and resources. Companies benefit from significant cost savings through all-in-one solutions that provide the necessary voice and data infrastructure in a single system.

Harmonix Technologies’ consultants, engineers, and technicians continually train and maintain professional certifications from industry leaders such as ShoreTel, Avaya, Nortel, HP, Extreme, and Microsoft. As one of only a few companies with this combined expertise, Harmonix offers a proven record of innovation and customer satisfaction in designing and implementing VoIP systems and applications.

It’s important to know when and how to migrate your business to a converged network. Connect with Harmonix Technologies to help you determine the right IP migration strategy for your organization.