Further, VoIP is inherently demanding on the underlying network. Packet delays and losses that no one would even notice during Web surfing can make voice applications unusable. At the same time, telephony is perhaps the most important infrastructure service. From a network services point of view, supporting VoIP means becoming extremely dependable about delivering very high levels of performance. Moving to such a demanding technology can mean lots of network upgrades, acquiring smarter traffic monitoring tools and practices, organizing end user training sessions, and managing the delicate business of integrating two service groups (telecom and data services), each with its own culture. Timing such a labor-intensive step can be a difficult call.

One Toe at a Time

To date most VoIP transitions seem to be triggered by major changes in the corporate environment, such as a significant divestiture, acquisition or relocation. Some companies, however, are finding alternate paths: incremental transition strategies that move the enterprise toward VoIP one step at a time, minimizing up-front costs and risks while maximizing education.

FedEx Freight, headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., is the part of FedEx devoted to the delivery of fairly small ("less than a truckload") units of freight between businesses. By nature it is a highly distributed operation, with 335 facilities scattered around the United States. Jeff Amerine, managing director of Communications Network Services, says that when the impending arrival of VoIP became obvious, he decided to concentrate on transporting calls among PBXes over the company WAN, putting desktop telephony and other end user applications on hold. About two years ago he set up a series of lab tests and field trials. Once those were completed, he defined a group of offices that were smaller than average ("Where you could cut your teeth with less risk," he says) and whose PBXes were nearing the end of their useful lives. He equipped the more than 30 offices that met both criteria with a VoIP-enabled PBX system from a large global manufacturer and watched WAN traffic behavior for six months. Then he rolled out the service to another 40 locations. Amerine says he expects to have all FedEx Freight’s facilities sending phone calls over the WAN by 2004.

He notes that the big surprise and lesson of his experience is the large number of tweaks?mostly hardware and software upgrades?needed to bring network quality of service up to the level required for voice. He adds that these tweaks are sufficiently sensitive to local features that an IT department would be well-advised to develop the necessary network expertise in-house. And incremental VoIP introductions give the IS department the time to master those skills.