Heading Back From Speech-World

I am heading back today and am on an American flight bound for NY at the moment (I am looking forward to the day that we have high-speed internet on flights). The show went well. Exhibitors told me the quality of attendees was great and the quantity was good for a first-time event. Last night was the 20th annual Top 50 award where we celebrate the largest outsourcers in the world. The dinner went well and it also included winners of the MVP quality awards.
I learned a great deal at the show. I met with old friends, made new ones and met the people implementing speech in their companies.
One thing that stuck in my mind was the tail end of a technology session to the Top 50 group where one of the largest outsourcers in the world with I believe 60 locations spread throughout the world asked me a question. The told me they are using VoIP heavily and sometimes their calls drop for hours on end.
Although I couldn’t do network diagnosis at the show I mentioned that we in the VoIP world are at the mercy of service providers just like we were in the PSTN world. The difference is that broadband “uptime” is not nearly as good as the PSTN. Redundant circuits, SONET rings ad other technologies can help those of the leading edge though.
Then there is the issue of third world country broadband connections. If VoIP has an Achilles heel it is that it relies on broadband providers. Eventually service providers will provide better broadband service but in the mean time companies need to protect themselves by having redundant systems in place so when there is an internet problem with one connection, switching over to another is seamless.

  • Phones
    May 27, 2005 at 2:20 pm

    Heading Back From Speech-World

    This blogger has some good points about VoIP reliability:…

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