RIP, Peter Bryant Exchange
The PBX is dead — obituary as follows:
Peter Bryant Exchange, commonly known as PBX, died yesterday at the age of 45 from complications related to advancement in telecom.
Mr. Exchange leaves his beloved wife, Teresa Denise Marilyn, and two young children, Ian Peter and Uma Catherine.
In his early years, Mr. Exchange excelled in his academic work, graduating top of his classes throughout his life. Upon receiving a Masters degree from MIT, Mr. Exchange was presented with several job offers, mostly from Fortune 500 companies. He decided to become a consultant instead, working for various firms on many projects throughout his life, specializing in the innovative field of telephony. Vocal and opinionated, he had a tremendous impact on how to streamline business communications and cut costs. His work continues to be cited regularly by business leaders around the world — their successful business operations often the result of Mr. Exchange’s visionary contribution. Many companies today were built on the foundation laid out by Mr. Exchange’s lifelong work.
His favorite number was ’9′.
A funeral was held earlier in the presence of close friends and family, with private burial.
Rest in peace, PBX. We have great hope in your children.
Guest post: Don’t get me started on VoIP
Today’s guest post is by Tony Tillyer who is a seasoned CTI professional and currently works at T-Mobile UK. Even if you’ve never met Tony, you probably recognize his name, especially if you’ve been dabbling in Genesys long enough. Tony is the author of several Genesys “Rough Guides” — semi-official documentation compiled by him with input from others based on hands-on experiences, an active forum moderator on the Genesys CTI User Forum, and one of the driving forces behind The Wire Magazine. It just happens that he’s in the middle of developing an article for The Wire which fits as a response to yesterday’s post, “Is VoIP a diversion?” Thanks for sharing and allowing us a preview, Tony!
VoIP/SIP does not have the service levels of TDM. TDM has an excellent track record since the majority of it is hard wired — and it’s been around for over a hundred years! If you pick up your deskphone handset you expect the dial tone, every time — right? What about if you switch on your PC, log in, plug in your headphones, open your softphone, log in… do you have the same expectations…? Does it always work…? I think that’s 1-0 for TDM… And, even when it works if you get the bandwidth, the priority (QoS) or configuration wrong, you can drop “packets” making it impossible to understand the caller — probably worse than not receiving the call in the first place!
If TDM is already there, it will always be there. What is the backup strategy for VoIP/SIP? If you have built VoIP/SIP where TDM previously existed, the chances are you left the TDM equpment in place, ”just in case” eveything goes pear-shaped. So — TDM is still there.
Out with the old, in with the new. If you are planning a new site, chances are you will go with VoIP/SIP, since it doesn’t have the price tag of TDM — no PBX, no ACD, no hard wires around the building, no turrets… and you would take the service level “hit” in your stride since you do not have a higher expectation of the service and you factor that in to your build.
VoIP/SIP is more versatile. Take Call Forwarding for example, using TDM it’s a standard affair: “Forward calls to xxxx…” With VoIP/SIP there are endless possibilities — working from home today? No problem — just log in at home… On the move? No problem — just log in when you get there… VoIP/SIP is “in the cloud” and is not tied down to a single location like TDM.
VoIP/SIP fits in seemlessly with the advances in other areas of telco technology. IVRs with Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-To-Speech (TTS), (V)XML, IP convergence — all of it requires a conversion from/to TDM — VoIP/SIP is there, already.
VoIP/SIP opens so many doors from a provider perspective. With the technology “in the cloud” the real estate resides elsewhere. You can tie in IVR, payment services, automated responses and all manner of things not possible with simple TDM — and all of it is off-site, being maintained by service professionals ready to provide an instant service to any customer.
The business impact of VoIP/SIP over TDM. If you have TDM and you want to rip it out, you are essentially removing the telco provider (switch, ACD, etc.) and replacing them with a single cable and an IT department. That’s over a hundred years of experience being replaced by the new boys over in the IT section. Are you sure you want to do that?!
In essence then, if you have TDM, stick with it — no point in using it as a back-up for a new technology, because it will be (ultimately) more costly. If you are planning a new site with the possibility to continually expand (and contract!) – why not use VoIP/SIP?
Categories: Telephony Tags: guest post, sip, tdm, voip
Is VoIP a diversion?
What intrigued me from the latest No Jitter post by Jason Alley of SmartContact Consulting isn’t the case for more turnkey contact center solutions, but rather this interesting statement about VoIP being a diversion:
What we are left with is much the same functionality that existed in the TDM world, delivered in a less integrated fashion, running on significantly more complex technology infrastructures. We are left with an industry where most systems are far from being turnkey.
Hmmm. He does make a very good point. What has VoIP brought us that traditional TDM doesn’t already have? In fact, I remember some contact center folks arguing against VoIP phones because they lacked the all too familiar dial tone! So in that regard VoIP took us back a couple of steps.
I’m also reminded of Naveen Narayan’s guest post making a case against more investment in voice infrastructure.
If TDM worked so well in contact centers for decades, why is VoIP taking over the world? Have we all been taken on a costly ride by Cisco’s marketing department?
You be the judge.
