Most medium and large enterprises are now struggling with the requirements of VoIP data networking.
These requirements generally fall into two areas:
- Capacity
- Latency
Capacity is the more simple of the two. When traditional data networks are asked to carry voice traffic, that increases the overall load on the network. This means that each network circuit and network device must be analyzed to determine if it is up to the task of carrying the additional traffic. For example, perhaps that OC-1 circuit can support all of the phone calls your organization makes, but the CPU in the router can't handle the extra load.
Latency requires an understanding of the special requirements of VoIP traffic. If your e-mail is delayed three seconds, you will never notice. If a web page takes an extra second to load, you will probably ignore the issue. On the other hand, if there is a one-half second pause in one of your telephone conversations, you will instantly become aware of a problem. Data networking has had to make huge adjustments to ensure that VoIP traffic is handled in a manner which minimizes latency. By and large, this is done by implementing
QoS (Quality of Service) technologies in network devices. Of course, the business requirement for latency reduction often leads to a technical requirement to upgrade network routers to handle newer QoS protocols.
Before you attempt to add VoIP to your data network, you should analyze your network capacity and latency to determine what upgrades will be necessary to handle the additional traffic with a quality level that is appropriate for your users.
Linear Mode
