Companies are choosing VoIP for many reasons, and three examples provide a good sense of the choices available on today’s market. One implementation is practical: At dental consultancy Consani Seims, VoIP provides a virtual presence in four Northwestern states and Alaska. Another implementation is sensible: Hat manufacturer New Era Cap uses VoIP to connect five disparate facilities while simultaneously slashing long-distance costs. The third could be classified as critical: In Nevada County, Calif., VoIP technology was the only rational solution when the county government’s private branch exchange (PBX) was near death.

No matter why organizations decide on VoIP?nor which vendors they choose to implement it?the days of switched-circuit telecommunications are coming to an end, say experts. "This is the future," says Walt Magnussen, director for telecommunications at Texas A&M University (see "Beyond VoIP," Page 103).

If that’s true, the only remaining question is, Are you ready?

A New Era at New Era

New Era Cap began operations in 1920 with a handful of people working out of a factory in Derby, N.Y. The outfit grew modestly during the next 80 years, patenting its famous "59Fifty" fitted caps?which became the standard for all 186 major and minor league professional baseball teams?and opening one additional factory in Buffalo, N.Y., to meet its niche audience. But when the company began an aggressive marketing campaign in the 1990s, everything changed. Surging demand forced the company to quickly open three facilities in Alabama, pushing Vice President of Information Systems and CIO Dan Marmion into a "telecommunications nightmare."

"We were spending thousands in long distance alone. Our phone guys were charging us $130 a pop just to come in and add another line," Marmion says. "It was insane."

Marmion decided to unify communications under a new PBX. Rather than purchase traditional analog equipment, however, Marmion opted for a digital PBX and VoIP equipment. In the end, Marmion settled on tiny AltiGen Communications to craft an all-inclusive approach.

The heart of the AltiGen solution was what the company calls its AltiServ2 IP telephone system, a series of IP-based PBX boxes at each location that communicate with each other over a VPN for secure transmission of data and voice. Equally critical were new AltiTouch Plus telephones, analog phones designed to offer simple extension-to-extension calling over IP, as well as advanced voice-mail features including the capability to check messages as e-mail attachments. New Era also signed on for AltiGen’s AltiConsole product, a unit that lets company receptionists forward calls from a toll-free number to any extension on the network without incurring the fees the company once paid to its old provider. Together, Marmion says, the tools create an effective and inexpensive solution to the challenge of linking remote offices.