The Benefits of VoIP in a Competitive Business Environment

Transcription

1 The Benefits of VoIP in a Competitive Business Environment Floriana GEREA, Economic Informatics Department, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, floriana.gerea@gmail.com Abstract As Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology matures, companies are increasingly adopting it to cut costs, improve efficiency and enhance customer service. Using the Internet as an existing network for integrating data and telecom systems through intelligent VoIP solution results in a range of benefits: lower long distance costs, cost cuts in cabling costs and fees for leased phone lines and more flexible telephony management. However, as voice over IP services grow in popularity major threats arise: this rapid growth leads to traffic congestions, data packages are lots and security is jeopardized and the poor quality of calls affects communication. The present paper is a case study about the advantages of Voice over IP technology in the business environment with the highest potential of development amid the actual economic context. Keywords: VoIP, SIP, Debt collection, H.323 Introduction The implementation of a structure that allows an efficient collection, assures the data protection, allows the adapting to a dynamic market and the cost reducing, is facilitated by using a high performance telecommunication system. VoIP is the short name for Voice over IP, a technology through which the human voice is transferred through a network based on the IP protocol (Internet Protocol). In a wider acceptation, VoIP represents telephony service through Internet. This type of telephony is increasingly used due to its great advantages. The year 2005 was a "victorious" year for VoIP because during this year there were installed more central telephone systems based on IP than the classical ones. The IP telephony is indeed practical from both economic point of view and infrastructure. The cost of the global economic crisis for the period is over four thousands milliard dollars. The calculation was made by the experts of the International Monetary Fund in the Report about global financial stability. In Romania, the poverty rate will go over 7% this year and will get to 10% in Last year, before the crisis, in Romania there were already 1,25 million persons that lived below the absolute level of poverty. The specialists estimate that by the end of 2010 this number could go over 2 millions. In the category of people that live below the absolute level of poverty are those who earn less than RON 250 per month. 1

2 The debts higher than 30 days have raised with 55,9% during the first quarter of 2009, reaching the level of RON 4,47 milliards (EUR 1,05 milliards) in the context of the increase up to 94% of the debts to foreign exchange debts at the end of At the end of last year, the population and the companies from Romania had debts to loans taken from banks of RON 2,865 milliards (EUR 719 millions). As compared to March 2008, the debts higher than 30 days to banks have raised with 224% from the level of RON 1,378 milliards, as it appears in the commercial banks data. On the foreign exchange market, the debts have reached RON 1,926 milliards (EUR 454,95 millions) at 31st of March 2009, higher with 93,95% as compared to end of 2008, when they were at RON 999,3 millions (EUR 249 millions). This data was influenced by the RON depreciation with 6,26% between end of December and 31st of March. The debts to local currency loans had a lower increase rate during the last three months of 35,7%, from RON 1,87 milliards (EUR 459 millions) to RON 2,54 milliards (EUR 599,93 millions). Due to the increase of the unpaid amounts, the weight of the debts in the total loan volume granted to people reached 2,2% at the end of first quarter of 2009, from 1,44% at the end of last year to 0,83% at 31st of March The global economic crisis determined companies to focus on minimizing the resource consumption and on increasing the efficiency of the internal processes. The latest public information made by the state institutes are a confirmation of the actual tendency on the market: the migration of the sales force to debts collection force. Collection activity Great companies with activity on international level choose now to externalize the collection activity to some specialized firms in Romania. At the same time, on the local financial market, by the time the rate of taking new loans remains still low, the companies focus on creating and developing internal departments to recover debts. The collection rate will fall down as compared to past years in the context of increasing the liquidity problems that local companies have. This year will be expected a slowdown of debts recovery from individuals, from 25-35% from the level of last years. Despite this fact, the debit volumes externalized by banks did not grow during the last period. For the next months, an advance of the amounts to collect is expected. "There are no increases in volumes, but the cases we have demonstrate that debtors don't have other refinancing sources, private or from banking system, therefore the payment capacity is very low", said Georg Kovacs, the manager of EOS KSI Romania. Last year, the member companies of AMCC have managed the debits of the individuals in value of RON 2,24 milliards (91% of the total debts to recover) and of companies in value of RON 230 million (9%). As for the amounts recovered in 2008, these raised to RON 1,033 milliards for the individuals and to RON 114 million for the companies. AMCC is composed by 8 members, Coface Romania, Creditreform, Cycle, EOS KSI, KRUK International, Mellon, Kolcze, Iliuta and the Associates and Credeteexoress, with a cumulated market share of 80-85%. The banking sector occupies the most important place in the activity of the debt collection companies. The most frequent cases of delays in payments that are administrated by the "debts collectors" came over the last months from the banks, show the members of AMCC (The Association of Commercial Receivables Management). 2

3 Circuit commuting Traditional telephony, based on dedicated transmission lines, used over the last decades, has found through VoIP an important competitor, mainly because of the technology differences between them. In traditional telephony, through the switch-circuit system (circuit commuting), a communication channel between the two correspondents is assured. This channel (physic electric circuit obtained by cables and electronic circuits) must be assured before the communication starts. During the conversation the channel must be used only by the same initial correspondents, being a channel dedicated to communication. At the end of the conversation, this channel must be canceled. This system was later improved by multiplexing of more channels on the same physic conductor, but each of these channels is dedicated only to one call at a certain time. In telecommunication, circuit commuting represents o routing method of the transmission between two correspondents, through one or more commuting centers. Between these two correspondents a continuous electronic connection is established, which will have the audio signal. The total of these telephonic central systems and of the connections that forms between them is called public network of commuting telephony (PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network). Having as starting point the analogical lines, this network is now almost entirely digital and it includes both fix and mobile telephone. Packages commuting Packages commuting are a predominant technology in the computer network area and more and more dominant in the telecommunication area. A package is the fundamental unity for the information transport in the network based on packages commuting. While the circuit commuting provides a transmission channel dedicated to two nods of the network, in the packages commuting, one transmission channel can be used by many nods. These nods in this type of network transfer the information one to another by information packages that have labels with the destination address and are routed individually. This type of package can be seen as an envelope in which the information is placed, and on the envelope the destination address is written. Apart from the information that must be sent, a package also contains information about destination, origin and the placing number out of many packages. This placing number is necessary at the destination in order to reconfigure the complete information that was sent segmented at the package level. The transmission of the package from one nod to another is made using intermediary nods that tries to determine the best route based on algorithms. Because of this, the packages belonging to the same sequence can get to destination in another order different from the one in which they were sent and on different physic routes, and the reassembling of the information in the correct order represents a problem that belong to the destination one. On a physic route there are usually transported packages that come from many nods and with different destination addresses. This is why a physic connection in this network typology is fragmented by many nods. The most recent utilization of this technology is the Internet that uses packages commuting through IP protocol (Internet Protocol) or other assembling protocols. Telephony and Internet The analogical vocal signal is capped by a microphone incorporated in the telephone machine or by a microphone connected to the computer's sound board. Through captivation, the signal is sampled and digitized in a numeric representation. If the captivation was made by a computer and the receiver uses a classical telephone, then these bites are packed, zipped and sent through IP protocol to a gateway that make the connection between Internet and PSTN network. This gateway is the interface between the two networks that use different communication methods. The audio signal will pass a part of the way as packages, then it will enter in a circuit dedicated between a VoIP 3

4 gateway and receiver. If the communication is made between two telephones, the signal passes through PSTN network, gets to a gateway where it will transform the signal into packages and it will be sent through IP to another gate, closer to the receiver. This will transform the signal back to the original signal which will be transported through PSTN to the receiver. If the communication is made by two computers, then the packages are sent directly to the correspondents. In principle, between the two correspondents there has to exist a mechanism through which each of the two correspondents is informed of the other s action, as well as sending the data flow with the voice. The actions that need to be controlled by this mechanism are connected to initiating the call, the system for routing the data flow and the call control. These actions are controlled by signaling protocols. Several signaling protocols exist and are currently employed. Some of them are standardized by international organizations like IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) or ITU (International Telecommunication Union), and others are private protocols used by applications that belong to commercial companies. The most famous signaling protocols are: SIP protocol is an application-level protocol (according to the IP level protocols), having the role of initiating, modifying, controlling and terminating an interactive session between the two correspondents, session that implies multimedia elements: voice (audio), images (video), communication (instant messaging), online gaming and so on. The SIP protocol provides the necessary methods for implementing the characteristics provided by the Public Service of Telephonic Networks (PSTN), as for example: dialing a number, informing a phone that it is being called, hearing a ringing or a busy tone, finishing a call, etc. The PSTN network uses for these functions the SS7 (Signaling System 7), system that provides advanced telephony services, but SIP and SS7 are different in concept and in implementation. SS7 is a highly centralized system, its telephony functions are incorporated and implemented within the telephony companies, the users phones are reduced to a minimum, from a technical point of view. On the other hand, SIP is a peerto-peer protocol, which means that this protocol needs a very simple but also very scalable intercommunicating network; the intelligence and the necessary technology are implemented in the extreme points of the network, which are the IP phones and the VoIP software. Many of the SIP functions are implemented in the terminal points of the communication while the SS7 functions are implemented centralized, within the network. This different approach is probably due to the roots of the SIP protocol, which start in the IP community and not in the communication industry. The SIP protocol, as well as H.323, is used in parallel with other protocols, SIP dealing mostly with the signaling of the communication session. SIP is a carrier for the SDP protocol (Session Description Protocol), which is used for describing the media content of the session (what ports are used, what kind of flow will be transmitted, what codec s must be used, etc.). The audio or video data flow is sent through another protocol (RTP = Real Time Protocol), separately of the SIP packets. From some points of view, SIP resembles the HTTP protocol that is used to access and send files in World Wide Web. The major similarities between the two protocols are: the demandanswer orientation, the human readable format and the reduced complexity. Although the original design of SIP was oriented to simplicity, the following developments have lead to a complexity that resembles that of H.323. Both SIP and H.323, are not limited in communicating through voice, but can mediate any king of communicating (video, text or other methods). VoIP - the advantages of this facility in the actual context The cost: the major advantage of this facility is the low cost. The reducing of costs is due to utilization of the same environment both for voice transport and for data. If a company has a connexion to Internet (not totally explored), then this connexion can be utilized also for the voice 4

5 transmission with no additional costs. Another cost reducing is represented by the fact that conversation between VoIP users is free. Generally, only the calls between VoIP and PSTN involve costs, while the calls between VoIP users don't involve any costs except for the connection to Internet. And because the connection to Internet already exists or is used in other purposes, VoIP telephony between its users is considered free. The image below presents a plan of receivable recovery taking into account a period of 50 days overdue. This scenario is generally utilized by the specialized companies in debts recovery and it reflects the importance and the increased weight that telephone calls have in this type of activity. Cluster Cluster de Server Application VoIP Server1 of Server1 Asterisk Server2 Asterisk Server3 Asterisk Server2 of Apache Server Cluster de Server SIP Server3 of SER SIP Proxy SER SIP Proxy Server4 of SER SIP Proxy Figure 1: Arhitecture VoIP Thus, the rate of reducing the cost of 5 calls per client that has duties is an indicator of efficiency in a collection company. Improved functionality: another important advantage is that of a improved functionality as compared to classic telephony. Some of the functionalities offered by VoIP are difficult or even impossible to accomplish in the classic telephony. Among these, there is the possibility to use an IP telephone wherever there is a connexion to Internet. This creates the possibility that the "fix" telephone be taken in traveling, having the call number everywhere. The most important beneficiaries of this facility are the Call Center agencies that use VoIP telephony in foreign countries due to the reduced costs with cheaper work force. Additional services: another important facility is represented by the fact that video images, folders or text messages can be sent while the call is made. Many of the existing soft s for VoIP provide these kinds of services. By using VoIP, the companies can considerably reduce the band length used for international calls, because the voice compression and the using of the communication channel is very much improved by packages commuting. The implementation of the VoIP technology represents for a company that in the present doesn't have a compatible infrastructure, apart from major advantages, also some costs, meaning hardware 5

6 upgrade, software solutions and maintenance. The companies that didn't make some initial investments in VoIP technology will focus on services and instruments that will offer them the basic functions from the business point of view at a minimum monthly cost. VoIP - Conclusions The Asterisk software solution is an open-source program that implements a PBX central system, allowing conversations between many interconnected telephonic posts as well as the connection to other exterior telephones (including PSTN). Among the Asterisk functions that in the past were used only by using expensive central commercial systems, we mention: mail box, conference call, interactive vocal answer, telephone menus and automatic call distribution. There is also the possibility of adding new functions by writing scripts using the Asterisk language, or adding new personal modules in C, writing of scripts in gateway Asterisk interface in Perl or in other programming language. As a conclusion, the VoIP industry consolidates in this period its position in the market through its innovation and the high level of security and adaptability, threatening to eliminate the traditional solutions (that are expensive, unsecured and inflexible). The collection activity, as an economic segment with one of the most spectacular growth in the crisis period, emphasis this new trend, being not only an important applicant in the business segment, but also a great participant at the developing of this technology adding new opportunity regarding efficiency / cost and functionality. References [1] G. GRUMAN, E. KNORR, What cloud computing really means. InfoWorld (2009, May), [Online], Available: reallymeans-031 [2] L. SIEGELE, Let it rise: A survey of corporate IT. The Economist, (Oct., 2008) [3] P. WATSON, P. LORD, F. GIBSON, Panayiotis Periorellis, and Georgios Pitsilis. Cloud computing for e-science, (2008), pp. 1 5 [4] R. M. SAVOLA, A. JUHOLA, I. UUSITALO, Towards wider cloud service applicability by security, privacy and trust measurements. International Conference on Application of Information and Communication Technologies (AICT), (Oct., 2010), pp. 1 6 [5] M.-E. BEGIN, An egee comparative study: Grids and clouds evolution or revolution. EGEE III project Report, vol. 30 (2008) [6] B. ROCHWERGER, D. BREITGAND, E. LEVY, A. GALIS, K. NAGIN, I. M. LLORENTE, R. MONTERO, Y. WOLFSTHAL, E. ELMROTH, J. CACERES, M.BENYEHUDA, W. EMMERICH, F. GALAN, The Reservoir model and architecture for open federated cloud computing. IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 53, no. 4 (July, 2009), pp [8] Implementing QoS Solutions for H.323 Videoconferencing over IP, Cisco Systems Technical Whitepaper Document Id: 21662, 2007 [9]. P. CALYAM, M. HAFFNER, E. EKICI, C.-G. Lee, Measuring Interaction QoE in Internet Videoconferencing, Proc. of IFIP/IEEE MMNS, 2007 [10]. S. WINKLER, Digital Video Quality: Vision Models and Metrics, John Wiley and Sons Publication, 2005 [11]. A. GHENCEA, Distributed Systems and Web Technologies, Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology, Vol. I, Issue 5, August 2011, Scientific Papers ( 6