South Africa is standing poised to make the most of the recent telecoms deregulation by implementing technologies such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP).

With vendors such as Cisco Systems Inc. claiming to be replacing around six thousand business handsets per day with IP-based telephones, and the larger PABX vendors preaching clear migration paths to IP, this is definitely the way in which the industry is moving.

Tim Parsonson, Storm Internet CEO, says that, given the local price differential, the uptake of VOIP will be significantly faster than it was overseas, where VOIP is as pervasive as PTN telecoms communications.

Wolfgang Held, network consultant at 3Com SA, echoes this sentiment, saying that enterprises are also ready for VOIP, because many are using PBX systems nearing the end of their six- to eight-year life cycle.

?While budget considerations previously kept them from supplanting these systems, large enterprises recognize that they can no longer afford to keep them and still remain competitive. Adding up all of these factors leads to one undeniable conclusion: there has never been a better time for most large enterprises to adopt IP technology,? he says.

We have all heard the arguments saying what VOIP is, what it does, and how it can save a company money, but, realistically, Storm says that the savings will be determined from how the solutions are rolled out and managed.

General sentiment in the industry is that the VOIP wave that is ready to crash on SA shores will bring with it a number of fly-by-night solution providers and chancers, all looking to make some money from the latest gravy train.

However, there are a number of companies that have been installing and managing VOIP and IP Telephony solutions for years, and they should prevail in what is surely going to be a feeding frenzy for local telecoms companies.

However, Parsonson says that companies should avoid becoming confused by the numerous solutions coming down the road, which could lead to disappointment in the technology from a reliability and TCO point of view.

?Most companies will save some money,? he says. ?Costs will naturally come down as more companies become connected on-net, and the costs of bandwidth are also set to start coming down. The real savings will come from those on-net calls to branch offices and international calls.?

Parsonson says that Storm does not foresee any dramatic savings over and above existing cellular-based least-cost-routing solutions already being used by a majority of companies in SA.

It has all too often been hammered into CIOs and IT managers in SA that any new technology should be measured by the business benefit that it brings to a company, and how it helps drive or improve existing business processes. Storm recommends that careful analysis be conducted before jumping at the first opportunity to IP-enable all voice traffic.

Similarly, 3Com?s Held advises that whether a company is totally replacing an outmoded PBX system, moving into a new facility, or adding new branches, implementing IP telephony is best done in stages.

The right technology will allow the large enterprise to phase in small groups of employees - for example, one department or branch office at a time -- over the course of several years.

Whatever companies choose to do, the IP wave is ready to hit the local market, and it is just a matter of making sure that the savings and business case justify the technology, thus avoiding another Y2K fiasco.