A hosted VoIP solution can benefit businesses looking for lower costs, scalability, mobility and simplified administration. For channel partners who sell hosted VoIP, making the right recommendation can increase recurring revenues and expand their customer bases. So, understanding how to ensure a successful VoIP deployment is a key part of the pre-sale process.

Quality of service (QoS) is mission-critical in the implementation of hosted VoIP because it defines how much or how little control the service provider has over the hosted platform, which in turn has a direct impact on the quality of the VoIP solution.

What is QoS? QoS is a set of techniques which helps manage network parameters – specifically delay, delay variation, packet loss and bandwidth. The integrity of real-time applications such as voice and video are especially sensitive to latency (delay), delay variation (jitter) and packet loss. This means the voice conversation or the video session can be compromised if jitter and delay are not properly managed. And, data performance, while less sensitive to delay and delay variation, can be degraded if packet loss is not minimized. QoS can help manage these resources, creating a more predictable hosted VoIP platform.

Key Considerations for QoS. In order to manage QoS, it is important to assess several key factors: traffic classification, scheduling, bandwidth and the customer LAN.

A LAN assessment can help determine a more effective QoS plan for larger customers. LAN assessments identify problem spots in the network prior to deployment and make the pilot deployment easier and more effective by confirming whether or not a network can adequately support VoIP’s unique network requirements. An in-depth LAN assessment also can prevent unnecessary network upgrades. While upgrades are required in many situations, it’s important to ensure that the needed upgrades are implemented and – as importantly – unnecessary ones are not. Finally, a LAN assessment can help measure overall call quality and any potential impact on end-users.

Best QoS practices should include SLAs that not only guarantee the uptime and availability of the hosted VoIP solution, but also guarantee the performance levels of network parameters such as delay, delay variation, packet loss and bandwidth. Each provider generally has its own QoS practices, so it’s important to query the provider about its standards.

QoS is an important element in business quality VoIP service. It can be easy to overlook in the pre-sale process, but it has a direct impact on the long-term success of a customer’s VoIP implementation. Because VoIP systems deliver recurring revenues, the more successful the VoIP experience is for a customer, the greater the potential for increased revenues, increased customer satisfaction – and increased sales.

Joe Corvaia is senior director of solution engineering for Broadview Networks Inc., a provider of business communications, including premises-based and patented hosted VoIP systems.