[asterisk-biz] How Realistic is Hosted VoIP for SMBs?

[Greg Boehnlein]

On Sun, 29 Oct 2006, GlobalOfficePhone wrote:

> Recently there has been an upsurge in articles about the benefits of hosted
> VoIP for SMBs accompanied by a similar upsurge in providers who offer such
> services.
> 
> While I understand most of the benefits highlighted, especially if the SMB
> is geographically dispersed; I can't seem to resolve one nagging dilemma in
> my head:
> 
> Calls between local extensions situated within a physical location (a
> cubicle across the hall) must traverse over WAN. Isn't this very
> inefficient? And, doesn't it require a much higher WAN bandwidth, which is
> usually limited and expensive - very expensive in some countries?

SIP handsets, properly configured, will send the media directly between 
the two end-points. I.E. only the call setup and signalling will go to the 
hosted server, but the phones will send the audio stream between 
themselves on the same LAN.
 
> So, for a 20-user SMB with all its users located in a single office, all
> extension-to-extension (local) calls must go out on a WAN and come back to
> the office. This will require a much higher scarce WAN bandwidth and not use
> the abundant LAN bandwidth!

No.
 
> Would hosted VoIP be a better choice such an SMB?

Depends on the customer, it's needs. Every solution is different.

> I would appreciate your thoughts on this issue to help sleep well :)

You might want to read up on how SIP works. Singalling is done on one 
port, while media is handled as a separate transaction using RTP.
 
> Thanks.
> 
> 

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