VoIP standards: which one should be used?

It is widely acknowledged that VoIP has brought with it a good number of advantages. Ease of use, affordability, flexibility — there are so many virtues to the technology which is the reason that it is gaining popularity. But implementing a standards-based VoIP network also presents an initial challenge in the form of selecting the appropriate standard. Over the past ten years, different industry standards bodies have developed a good number of VoIP standards that works efficiently for specific telephony environments. Enterprise IP telephony, carrier long distance, call center, residential class 5 switching, computer telephony systems, among others, all require different features, integration capabilities, scalability, and expertise. The key is to carefully consider the strengths and weaknesses of each standard from both an academic and industry best-practice point of view. Doing this will prevent the possibility of future re-designs or accelerated equipment depreciation – which can have a big effect on the bottomline of companies, be they big or small.

But not all VoIP environments must include all of features intrinsic for each standard. There are guiding principles that would also help in selecting the best suited VoIP standard, among these are:
• The scale environment of the VoIP network
• The size of the enterprise (is it a big or small company?)
• Central headquarters or distributed architecture?
• Integration with third party service providers
• Implementation of a local and long distance VoIP service
• Will there be a per-seat phone service policy?
• Support for computer telephony