As the first part of this article detailed, telecommunications regulations in India forced Cisco, and other companies that wanted to take advantage of VoIP efficiencies, to deploy a dual infrastructure for intracompany calls and external calls.
The first step to overcoming the cumbersome dual infrastructure came when Cisco IT employees began to think creatively about how to combine the two voicemail systems (messages that came on the VoIP network were stored in a Cisco Unity voicemail system, while PSTN calls were stored in another voicemail system). The Cisco IT people realized that voicemail, as a store-and-forward technology, did not require the kind of real-time communications flow between the PSTN and VoIP networks that Indian regulations prohibited. After two months, Cisco IT was able to persuade regulators to allow consolidation of the two systems.
It was a Cisco customer, however, who came up with the next step of the solution. That customer realized that by using the partitioning technology within Cisco CallManagerhe same technology that lets companies restrict long-distance access on lobby phones, for instanceou could intelligently route calls to either the PSTN network or the VoIP network.
Using this idea, Cisco IT submitted a detailed design document to regulators describing the ability of Cisco CallManager to manage PSTN and VoIP as separate virtual networks, even though they resided on the same cluster. It required a three-hour face-to-face meeting with regulators to explain the concept, but in the end, the effort was successful for a variety of reasons:
- Cisco had developed a strong relationship with regulators during its previous discussions regarding network consolidation
- Cisco had never violated regulations regarding call routing
- Cisco agreed to allow regulators to audit the VoIP network at will
Since 2005, Cisco employees on the Divyashree Chambers campus have been using a single phone for both PSTN and VoIP connectivity. Cisco has been able to reclaim approximately $1 million worth of equipment, which it has in turn used for other local expansion projects. Not surprisingly, the consolidation has increased productivity and reduced operational costs; Cisco salespeople also use the site as a model of what customers can expect.
The payoff for the extended efforts has been twofold. Our IT staffers gained valuable firsthand experience in working with regulators in India, but they also gained insight into the issues involved in converging and maintaining what had been separate PSTN and VoIP infrastructures. Currently, the remaining PSTN Cisco CallManager clusters throughout Cisco offices in India are being collapsed into a single cluster that will support both PSTN and VoIP for all Cisco operations in India.
In the areas of compliance and technology, we learned other lessons as wellamely, that it important to:
- Be sure that your plans are clear and detailed when approaching regulators to converge PSTN and VoIP network infrastructures. It critical to present the correct design documentation and to clearly define the plan for partitioning.
- Be willing to comply with any and all requests. It likely that regulators will create a list of tasks for you to completeurnishing call logs for a 12-month period, for instanceo ensure compliance.
- Be prepared to create a sense of urgency and to follow up frequently on the progress of the approval process. Sometimes the length of time to get approval correlates directly to the pressure you place on regulators.
- Be sure to implement proper backup capabilities in case you need to halt the migration or change its schedule. Collapsing PSTN Cisco CallManager clusters into VoIP clusters can be a complex task that affects many users.
- Expect that you may have to make some adjustments, such as modifying routing tables, even after deployment.
Dealing with compliance issues can be time consuming and frustrating. But listening to the issues that governing bodies face can be enlightening, and the process can help you reach a mutually agreeable solution. You might even find a solution that gives you insight into other challenges. Sometimes, challenges inspire creativity in unforeseen areas.
