Thank you Telco for your practical view point. As a student I am gaining a lot from this discussion thread and I hope my questions are relevant.
Let us look at cost. From what you describe for VoIP deployment in-house there is a big element in fixed cost.
I see three
– switches and other equipment
– Upgradeable software (As LAN/WAN technologies change?)
– Staffing (isn’t it more work done in-house?)
The variable cost – the per-minute calling costs I assume are lower in the case of IP telephony.
Whereas, in a traditional telco provided voice connectivity almost all costs are variable.
Therefore, if the fixed costs are reasonably high and the maturity of the technolgy is low
(that means technolgy will change in near time) it sure is not obvious that VoIP is beneficial.
Just to get some numbers, can someone give me an idea of what kind of costs are we talking about?
Thanks
krishna