In just a few years, voice over IP has gone from novelty to state of the art. Sure, countless businesses still use old-fashioned phones over old-fashioned lines, but when building new systems or upgrading, VoIP is a compelling option: cost-cutting, versatile, multifeatured.
Thomas F. Towhill Jr., vice president and partner at Computer Telephone Inc. (CTI), in Warwick, has been building and supporting phone and computer networks for more than 20 years. As VoIP gained traction, CTI tried it for its own use, then began recommending it to clients.
With VoIP penetration rising fast worldwide, Towhill recently spoke with Providence Business News about the technology’s viability for companies large and small, the challenges and the advantages.
PBN: How many clients do you serve, and what range of services do you provide?
TOWHILL: We’re probably within the top few companies in our business in Rhode Island. We’re more diversified than some of the other telecom companies: We do more than business telephone systems – we also provide IT support services and are IBM and Microsoft business partners; we provide managed services for IT; we are also in IP camera systems, as well as advanced access control. … We support more than 1,500 businesses.
PBN: How long have you been doing VoIP, and did you see a tipping point in recent years where it became widely accessible and appealing to your clients?
TOWHILL: There is an increasing trend. Three years ago, maybe half the people we talked to in the small- to mid-size market were interested in VoIP. … Today, I would say 100 percent are, as well as existing clients. … I’m not saying everybody buys VoIP upfront, but they want to have the processing ability.
TOWHILL: At first glance, they look almost identical. … But it really has to do with what’s inside the telephone. The VoIP phones get connected into the local area network and into the wide area network to integrate remote workers and other offices. Where we’ve had success with pure VoIP solutions has been not only upgrading the processors but also introducing VoIP trunks, or lines, into the system. What we’re seeing is that with these new ITSPs, as they’re called – Internet telephone service providers – when you take their services and apply them to a pure VoIP solution, in many instances, people who have traditional T1s or PRI circuits [“smart” trunks that integrate voice and data services] are saving upwards of 50 percent or more on their phone bills.
PBN: But neither of the two major players in this market, Verizon and Cox Communications, offer VoIP to businesses, do they?
TOWHILL: We work very closely with Cox; we refer clients to them, and we get a lot of referrals back, on the equipment side – obviously they’re not into deploying equipment. They’re one of the only carriers that haven’t entered into that market; a lot of others, like PAETEC, BroadView, One Communications, have entered into the VoIP equipment-delivery side, which is kind of new on that end. And on one hand, we’ve seen that as a threat, but many of them are outsourcing those services, and we see them as stimulating the market, because they’re out there pounding the street.
PBN: So who are the companies carrying the actual calls now?
PBN: How much of an investment does VoIP entail, and is that still a challenge for people even if you do save them on the monthly service costs?
TOWHILL: The capability for VoIP is built into all the phone systems that we install … from the entry-level, small-business systems, to systems with hundreds of handsets. And they all include SIP trunking capability, though it may require adding a license to activate it. What we’re seeing in the marketplace, including installation, hardware, the server and all that – it depends on how sophisticated it is, but at the entry level, you’re looking at an average of $400 to $500 a handset.
PBN: Where do you see VoIP going in the next two or three years?
TOWHILL: I think we’re going to start to see more products coming into the marketplace. You’re going to see a lot more mobile integration – smartphone integration capability; we’re starting to see it now, to tie in your BlackBerry, for example. … We’re seeing a lot of development where people can get unified messaging, getting voicemail into their e-mail. And SIP extensions will be big, where I can do a three- or four-digit dial off my mobile phone when I’m traveling in California, and get somebody else who has a SIP extension phone, or at the home office, and it doesn’t cost me a thing. … You’re also going to start to see a lot more players getting more visible and financially stronger. •
