Important : This is going to be a non-technical article so be forewarned :-). It could be more boring than the title suggests and I won't be held responsible if you fell asleep reading this and spilling coffee over your brand new Logitech keyboard. No animal or human was harmed in any psychological way during the composition of this article.
In the olden days, we had pigeons and human carriers to send our messages to someone albeit not a very far distance. After that, thanks to Mr Bell, we had the telephone which changed the way we communicate forever. Fax then slowly came in followed by video conferencing (remember those days we had to hook up ISDN lines to have our own video conferencing?). Today we are blessed with the Internet hence e-mails, video mails and other audio/video types of chats were released to the world.
One technology that I have quite an interest is Video over IP (I'll start calling it VoIP form here on). Several software that some of you might be familiar with already are Skype and MSN Messenger. some of the more famous products that uses VoIP technology. If you look at it, especially Skype, these programs are designed to promote more efficient and cost-saving communications between people. It's to connect them seamlessly.
My run-in with VoIP started with Skype. It all began a few years ago when I wanted to know how to communicate with my family back in my hometown the cheapest and fastest way. I had broadband ordered for my father back at home and all that's left is for us to get online and start communicating. I found out that typing sometimes can cause massive confusions as well as the inability to express whether this is a serious matter or not to my father. This prompted me to start looking for a reliable technology that could enable me and my dad to talk over the Internet just like on the phone. I mean come on ... this is the Internet we are talking about. Almost anything is possible right???
Now after installing Skype for my father and myself, I found myself talking to my father more often. Skype itself is free, our monthly 1mbps ADSL line costs us USD $30 per month each. Now compare this to a land-line telephone call which will cost us almost USD $1 every 2 minutes. Even with the mobile charges now of USD $0.10. In the long run, why pay for a service when you can actually get it for free just as long we have computers plus due to the fact, that we can actually SEE each other albeit virtually? Remember, saving a little at a time can accumulate to a huge savings!
Another thing that I would like to share, believe it or not ... Skype or VoIP to be more technology-focused, actually brings my family closer. I found that with Skype and because of the Internet wave that has swept almost all Generation-Y people and also due to the fact, that a significant number of my relatives actually uses the Internet, we can communicate freely and without restrictions. We get to updates ourselves with what has happened whether via voice or video chats. For instance, at this point of writing, I now know that my sister-in-law is expecting her second child from her tummy size when I had a recently had a video chat with her. I also know that my father has someone to depend on when he has computer problems showing him graphs and diagrams using MSN Messenger's built-in video function. I also know that because I only get to see my parents once or twice a year, speaking to them over long periods of time makes them feel that I still remember and care for them not to mention having to do crazy gestures and funny faces whenever I see them online (or if I am bored, I just use a face-morphing program to amuse them). I don't need to burn a hole in my pocket for all this thanks to VoIP.
A nice point to know is my wife is now planning to take her ACCA classes online so that she can have more flexibility in organizing her study time to balance with her working life and also so that she does not need to attend night classes which is for safety reasons (which I don't mind telling you readers that some places in Malaysia including Kuala Lumpur is NOT a safe place at night for girls who walk alone or men to that matter. I was nearly robbed once at knife-point FYI).
Another point that I would like to highlight about VoIP especially since we are readers of the CCIE Flyer is that do you actually realise that thanks to VoIP, some CCIE vendors like IPExpert and Internetwork Expert can actually offer online classes/bootcamps? Now I will never afford to fly all the way to the USA or UK to that matter (or even Australia at this point) to attend one of those classes/bootcamps hosted by either vendors but with their offerings of online classes/bootcamps, I might and that's just a might be able to afford one in the future (although I am still wishing for a free one :P. You hear me vendors? I think they just skipped this part).
Now VoIP had so much benefits for me and my family, what can it do for the corporate world? A LOT! Cisco in recent times have pushed for VoIP into the business (they realized the significance of VoIP otherwise you would never see Voice as a CCIE track would you?). Products such as video phones, Telepresence, UCM, etc. have such a huge impact on the industry in terms of efficient ways to communicate what more especially even now since the worldwide economy is not really that encouraging nor is easy to stimulate.
If you're in an office with more than 10 branches all dispersed around the continents of the world, wouldn't it be cheaper if we have a VoIP chat between let's say America and Japan? American and Malaysia? Norway and China? Australia and Holland? Imagine the amount of costs that a company can save just by implementing VoIP. That sure beats having to pick up a regular phone and talk to that person or getting a flight just to meet the person to show him and explain some documents to him/her. Think about it people, company save costs means more monetary funds for the company and in turn could be very well beneficial to us.
Also with constant communication between people in these companies, don't you think that we can actually be more productive as we tend to communicate more with our peers on problems, on work, on deadlines, share ideas, etc. We get to express ourselves more especially when we have video chat sessions among our peers.
My current employers have adopted VoIP recently and guess what, we are using the audio features in Office Communicator 2007. Reason for it? Simply costs and better communication between our over 10,000 employees. With over 380 offices in over 80+ countries, we will have huge savings when we deploy VoIP. Guess I can try to ask for some training funds now or maybe I finally get to attend a Cisco Networkers Live event ...
Nickelby Thane is a CCIE R&S candidate who uses Skype on a daily basis as well as MSN Messenger. Apart from his CCIE studies and work, the balance of his free time is spent on playing tricks on his poor wife. If you would like to chat with him or tell him how boring his articles are getting (grins), please add him on Skype (search for nthane) or MSN Messenger (nickelby at hotmail dot com). Girls are strongly advised to add him with no guarantees of safety :-).