Devil's Advocate: Talk is just more data

Aren't converged networks too unreliable, too power-hungry, simply just too complicated? Martin Brampton contends we are still some way from networking nirvana...

It is very fashionable to talk about voice and data integration. But why would we do it, and are the benefits all they are made out to be? Sooner or later, integration will happen. Even so, there are still a number of difficulties to be overcome.

Certainly, the core networks operated by BT and other carriers have been wholly digital for some time. Communications traffic is digitised, if it is not already a digital service, before making use of network links. The tendency is for the most modern installations to be IP-based, the protocol that has become dominant for most electronic communications. This has happened especially where a rival to the traditional incumbent installs new facilities.

In some countries, including the UK, a major modernisation opportunity has been lost. ISDN is a telephone service that gives the subscriber relatively direct access to the facilities of the core network. Unfortunately, BT chose to always keep ISDN a premium service, severely limiting take up by the SoHo sector.

Whether other organisations should integrate voice and data communications is a much more difficult question. One immediate problem is the matter of expectations. Telephony has achieved extraordinary levels of reliability and consistency of service. It is a considerable challenge to provide the same service quality through an all-purpose digital network. The track record of data networks leaves a good deal to be desired.

And it is not merely a question of the availability of better technology. A significant part of the problem is that there are very few providers of installation and management services that are capable of achieving high standards of service in an integrated network. The data people have never achieved high enough standards and the voice people don’t understand data.

Wireless is a tempting technology for the final delivery of both voice and data services. Unfortunately, it is not proven for handling the very high density of demand in a typical large office environment. In some organisations, there will also be staff concerns about whether there are health issues associated with heavy use of wireless.

So that usually throws us back on cabling. Voice cabling is quite thin and normally there are no active components between the PBX and the user. The near ubiquitous data carrying UTP (category 5) is, by contrast, bulky. It also needs active components that require power supplies and frequently create heat dissipation problems. The need for distributed power is one of the factors that reduce the reliability of data networks.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that current cabling practices for data are obsolescent and, for that reason, a less than ideal platform for voice services. Unfortunately, there are only tentative steps to moving forward. Ideally, we need thinner cables that can still carry large volumes of data and we need active devices with very low power requirements that can be fed along the data cables. That way, it would be much easier to build a cabling tree that drastically reduced the problems of cable bunching.

A further issue that is not yet fully resolved is the mechanism to be employed to achieve links between voice and data services. The main question is whether the links should be made at user level or at server level. Indeed there is still much to be learnt about the best ways to achieve unified messaging and how best to leverage the advantages of both voice and data terminals. Moreover, users are notorious for not using fancy facilities unless the interface is highly intuitive.

In short, the most tempting opportunity for voice and data integration is a new or radically refurbished building. Even there, caution is needed with the choice both of equipment supplier and of installer and maintainer. The advanced facilities need to have perceived value to users.

Most of all, it is vital to retain their confidence and ensure that their expectations are met. It hardly needs to be said that a high-tech solution, even if it saves cash, will be counted a failure if the resulting service is considered poor. Yet such solutions are still all too common.

** Martin Brampton is a director and founder of Black Sheep Research (www.black-sheep-research.co.uk ), an independent consultancy providing research, writing and speaking services on a wide range of business and technology subjects. Martin was previously a director at Bloor Research, and has worked with IT as a user and analyst for over 20 years. He can be contacted at silicon@black-sheep-research.co.uk.

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