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The tenet that voice over IP saves money for enterprises seems to be true, but the amount of money that companies spend to deploy VoIP varies "wildly" by the vendor and the size of the company, says a new "benchmark" study by Nemertes Research.
For the study, titled "Convergence: Reality at Last," Nemertes interviewed IT executives from more than 100 enterprises about the costs and quality of their VoIP deployments. Nemertes terms these benchmark studies because they endeavor to determine costs and benefits as a new technology is deployed.


According to the study, initial deployment costs ranged from $515 to $1,512 per user. ShoreTel and Nortel Networks Inc. posted the lowest per-unit startup costs; Avaya and Cisco Systems Inc. posted the highest. "The low end [of] that would be companies with 1,000 users of more. With more users you get lower startup costs," says Robin Gareiss, principal research officer for Nemertes. Shoretel was at the low end with the lowest per unit cost for those with 100 or more users. Nortel had the lowest cost when there were 100 users or less, Gareiss says. Avaya had the highest cost for enterprises with 1,000 users or less.


Overall, says Gareiss, VoIP gets much higher marks for quality than it did 18 months ago when Nemertes did an initial study. "People are now convinced that the technology has reached the point where it is mature enough," says Gareiss.


Now the issues are ongoing savings and what many people see as the next step in VoIP, innovative and custom applications. "They have to be convinced of the business benefits and the application benefits," she says. "They need to see hard- dollar savings and how to leverage the network with applications that make the most use of it."


For overall quality, Shoretel ranked first in every area examined except "overall solution experience," where it tied with Nortel. "Shoretel customers just love the product," says Gareiss. They characterize it as "easy to use, straightforward, and like the simplicity."


Nortel greatly improved customer service ratings, which had been lower in earlier studies. They company has trimmed its reseller corps, which used to be voluminous. Previously Nortel was "slammed in customer service because the VARs were not trained," says Gareiss.


Cost savings remain the major driver for migration to VoIP, with long-distance, and moves, adds and changes being the areas of the biggest savings. And, deployments in new offices can save 20 percent to 40 percent on wiring alone, Gareiss found. Still, some companies migrate to VoIP "just to future-proof the network."