Does VoIP Technology actually work? Why so many horror stories?

Absolutely! The Technology is awesome. The horror stories come from the companies that deploy it.

VoIP is an IP service that is delivered over IP. This means that the company that provides this service to you must be able to deliver IP at the quality level that you would expect to receive voice serves at. Well, if you are thinking any old traditional phone company can do this you are very mistaken. Most phone companies don’t have a clue how to deliver high quality IP services. I have worked with a few companies that started out as ISP’s who have deployed the service successfully.

There are a few obvious deployment errors. Anybody who will sell you VoIP services without you buying a link into their network doesn’t know what they are doing.
Ex. If you buy Internet access from one provider and VoIP service from another, you will have your own horror story. Everybody assumes the Voice Over IP means “Voice over Internet” Voice Over Internet doesn’t work. There is not quality control.

The other major problem out there is the big names in Telecom don’t have the intellectual property to do it and especially don’t have the networks or policies to execute it. They will sell you the services but you will experience the same issues and more than you did when you had traditional phone service with them. They built out their IP Networks for low cost, NOT high performance. They never intended or wanted to put voice on their IP networks. This is why they are struggling today to provide VoIP quality products. Some small providers wholesale these services and utilize these same networks.

Many IP providers are aggregating heavily into Frame Relay networks. You will see the same performance on their T1 networks that you see with their DSL services. What you want to look for is a provider that will drop your T1 circuits into the POP that delivers you to the Internet and links you to the VoIP switch. This is the best scenario, But hard to find.

If you are considering VoIP you should only talk with providers than can give you both Internet and VoIP products. Ask them how they will guarantee the quality. Then consider whom you are doing business with. If you ask them for VoIP and they don’t know what you are talking about you should move on. Small companies are the best positioned to provide these services at high levels of quality. The problem you will see here is that most of the small companies are startups that are operated by Traditional minded personnel.

Traditional Telecom mentality is what has un-necessarily dragged the VoIP products from taking off. VoIP has been the clear choice for at least a decade. Dealing with sub pare IP Networks and providers lead by the Telco Industry has really been a struggle.

You can take the telco worker out of the telco but you cannot take the telco out of the worker. Well, not unless you have a little more than a decade to do it;)