Is Your Network Ready for Unified Communications?

With just-released findings from Global Industry Analysts (GIA) revealing that revenue from IP-based conferencing will expand by nearly 14.7 percent by 2018, now is the time to begin to closely analyzing your corporate network to ensure it is capable of handling the increased demands that come from leveraging various unified communications offerings.

Looking particular at video conferencing, a solution that is currently being leveraged by global businesses as way to stay in close contact with clients and employees without physically having to travel to their location, Petr Jirovsky of IDC (News - Alert) recently commented, "Video as a key component of collaboration continues to place high on the list of priorities for many organizations. But key questions going forward now include: How will these video collaboration solutions be deployed? With more software or hardware?"

Thus, several key steps must be taken within the enterprise environment in order to successfully leverage a video conferencing that can bring countless benefits to your company such as reducing costs, keeping everyone on a team on the same page and even improving customer satisfaction levels.

First, it is vital to determine the number of users who will be utilizing the conferencing product. “This should dictate the purchasing and implementation decisions. If only a few users need to access the technology, a low-cost consumer service may be useful,” a blog post from Teo advises.

It is important to note here that selecting a platform that can be scaled up or down according to the ever-changing needs of an organization, such as the UC Pro Server, will prove vital in the long term. Highlighted for being a SIP-based VoIP platform that brings together a variety of capabilities into a single platform, the UC offering is cost-effective and can dramatically boost productivity levels seen by employees working both inside the office and remotely.

Next, bandwidth must be considered. The post added, “Many IT managers quickly integrate the service without adjusting their data availability. When considering the technology, companies need to analyze their current network setup and decide if it should be expanded. If there isn't enough bandwidth available, conferencing networks can be slow, images may appear grainy and voice transmission might be choppy. All of these can be embarrassing and unproductive when contacting clients.”

While Ericsson (News - Alert) estimates that improved network speeds will assist in video traffic on mobile networks growing an impressive 60 percent by 2018, you can bet that the amount of needed bandwidth by businesses will also increase by the year.

With these tips in mind, before utilizing video conferencing, your corporate infrastructure needs to be ready.