Q: I am looking to cut some costs or at least get more for our money on the wireless side and my provider has suggested I move all 2000 users into a pooled plan. This seems like a good idea, but before I make the switch can you tell me more about how pooled plans might help?
A: It can be a great way to optimize your wireless costs but there are a couple of things of which to be aware. First find out how the proposed plan works. Is the organization being given one large bucket of minutes, are a specific amount of minutes being added to the pool per user, or are users entering with a specific amount of minutes but can then pull from the pool as needed? Understanding the structure of the plan will help you make an informed decision about how flexible it will be as users are added or removed over time.
There are additional considerations. With a pooled plan it can be difficult to determine how to chargeback costs to individuals or departments. Another concern is pool size – the larger the more likely it will be overstocked with minutes. One way to optimize pools is to group high-usage users together in one and low-usage users in another. When done properly a well-designed pooled plan can potentially contribute to overall wireless cost optimization.
Q: My organization is looking into implementing VoIP for all of our locations but we have several located outside of the U.S. Is VoIP available everywhere in the world or only in the U.S., Canada and Europe?
A: Because VoIP allows for voice transmission across a data network, in theory if you had the necessary customer-premises equipment you could implement it anywhere in the world you have a data network. Implementing a network that allows calls placed outside of your internal network, however, may not be available or legal in the same way at each of your locations.
Several countries heavily tax or even ban VoIP, often to protect the revenues of state-run telecom providers. In Africa, for example, there are only 10 countries that have legalized VoIP. In other countries, including India, it is legal but only through providers who have been approved as a licensed ISP. Before considering a large-scale implementation be sure to do some research on the countries in which you have offices to ensure that the technology will be a viable and legal option.
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