Skype vs. Corporate Telephone Network
Posted on May 24, 2010
Due to the fact that nowadays Skype is a one of the most popular IP-telephony providers, a lot of companies have accepted it as an adequate substitute for a corporate telephony system. There is no need to deny the fact that Skype is undoubtedly a very good software for family use or for solving certain communicative issues within a small business company, which has no own corporate network. In this article I would like to ponder over the advantages of Skype before a corporate convergent network for a large-scaled business.
Let’s consider the advantages that Skype developers list as the apparent advertising of their services:
1. Low price of implementation: no expenses on buying the licenses, implementation and technical support; as well as the possibility for the subscribers to call each other for free. (This is a clear advantage, which unfortunately does not distinguish Skype from a number of similar software. The only unique advantage of it at the moment is the great number of subscribers, though with Google having appeared on the market this advantage is predictably temporary.)
2. Easy administering. (As I see the situation, in this case they should be talking of the absence of administering rather than of any kind of it.)
3. A great sweep of user appliances. (This advantage is also doubtful as it is not clear enough to me of what importance the possibility to use PSP with Skype might be for any kind of business.)
Now let us tell you about the faults of Skype as we see them and at the same time about the advantage of a corporate convergent network.
Expensive outer calls
In the modern world there are a lot of VoIP providers offering far better deals on calls and higher quality of connection. As an example you can compare the tariffs of such a provider with the tariffs offered by Skype here:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/prices/callrates/?currency=USD#allRatesTab
http://dualtalk.com/rates.htx
And now try to imagine the importance of this disadvantage for your business taking into account that most calls are made to the countries of company’s presence and the connection to PBX with local tariffs allows decreasing the expenses immensely. Also it is worth mentioning here that a lot of countries allow connecting cell phones to certain groups with free calls within them; and with GSM gateways it is possible to make almost every call free of charge.
Short list of locations available for direct numbers to connect
Please follow the link to see the locations:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/allfeatures/onlinenumber/.
Moreover there is even a shorter list of locations where subscribers will be able to see your number. This disadvantage can be a clincher for many companies to give up the idea of using Skype for corporate international and long-distance calls.
Lack of integration with corporate telephone system
This is a disadvantage that should be definitely considered because an ordinary morning conference call for 5 employees sitting in one office room might look like a sad show and stop being and effective communicative means for one simple reason — solutions similar to:
http://www.polycom.com/products/voice/conferencing_solutions/index.html do not work with Skype. Obviously there is no chance of mentioning a possibility of making calls to an employee’s cell phone in a different office using the intranet.
Lack of integration with corporate mail and workflow systems
The lack of integration with corporate mail and workflow systems based of SharePoint does not allow you to see the status (free, busy, away, etc.) of employees you are working over a document or project with. Also when using Skype the history of calls is saved on local computer and is inaccessible for you as soon as you leave the office.
Quite modest possibilities for organizing video conferences
Skype allows only “point-to-point” connections and its individual solution for video conferences is unfit for corporate use.
Channel overload
Skype requires bandwidth as big as 40-60 Kbyte/sec, while modern equipment can use 16 Kbyte/sec (considering header compression) for one telephone call.
Uncontrolled usage of network resources
As everyone knows, Skype is a peering network and any computer can become a proxy server for other users if the channel speed is high enough. It means that data is transferred not via central servers but via users’ computers which have Skype installed on them. This is a reason why any working Skype client can result in huge incoming and outgoing traffic. Would you be surprised if you get a bill for extra 3G? Undoubtedly, it will be not a pleasant surprise.
Lack of control over users’ actions
When using Skype for building corporate intranet any company looses the ability to control the actions of users within in, i.e. where and whom to corporate information is sent, who gets remote access to corporate desktops, etc. Even if not to consider the faults of Skype technology, which can be the reason of information leak, it is worth mentioning human factor here. To realize how obvious the danger is, you can imagine that one of your employees gets a chance to share his/her desktop with your competitors without any control.
Low security level of corporate data
Skype is a black box and its security as well as the security of your computer is based on the encryption of traffic and the program itself. Any person who gets these encryption keys can steal your corporate data. As an answer to similar arguments Skype states that even police has no ways of getting access to Skype calls. It sounds more like a marketing campaign beneficiary for both sides rather than a reasonable statement, at least for me.
Image
And the last but not the least – company’s image. If your company uses Skype instead of corporate network, it makes your partners and clients think what the investment asset of it is. Also it is clear that any company operating at the times of information technologies onrush can not avoid the latest innovations in every day business without a fear of being called a partner without any prospects or trustworthiness.
In this article we did not try to convince you that Skype can not be used as a communication means, but own convergent network gives you a number of advantages either financial or managerial.
To get an idea about what a powerful instrument can a single corporate convergent network be in organizing your corporate communications, please read our article