By Alex Scroxton30 June 2008
Issues surrounding the interaction
between telephony solutions and business firewalls could present a hidden
opportunity for data resellers that previously thought they had no skills in the
voice arena.
Simon Paton, managing director of
open standards unified comms specialist CommuniGate believed data resellers
could have a better grasp of how to set up a VoIP network than a traditional
voice reseller.
“Data resellers are comfortable with
IT, but frightened of telephony, but increasingly telephony is IT. Phones are
PCs with IP addresses, for example,” said Paton.
“The biggest issue with telephony at
the minute is firewalls. People [customers] don’t want to open extra ports to
voice,” he added, suggesting that data resellers would have a better
understanding of this part of the business, whereas PBX dealers could find
themselves squeezed out.
Dave Millett, director at hosted
VoIP and network services provider Inclarity, agreed that while data resellers
could easily grasp the technology, there were still some areas where PBX
specialists could have the upper hand.
“While they have the skills set to
deploy the technology, the voice companies can bring knowledge in porting, or
setting up diverts, and somebody who has never been in voice can slip up there,”
he said.
Both it would increasingly fall to
providers to bridge the gaps in knowledge that exist between voice resellers and
data resellers.
