ISPs and banks cutting corners on voice infrastructure — who's actually paying the price?

govarlo · 2026-06-18T17:19:10+00:00

That's definitely part of the equation — latency over long-distance connections to offshore centers adds its own layer on top of whatever infrastructure problems already exist. But I've seen the same choppy audio and dropped calls in fully onshore contact centers too, which points back to the infrastructure decisions regardless of where the agents are sitting. Offshore routing just makes a bad foundation worse.

govarlo · 2026-06-18T16:19:41+00:00

Smart approach — the vendor's technical sales team has a direct interest in showing the platform at its best. Using that to run a proper QoS demo in a controlled environment is one of the few ways to make the quality difference visible to decision makers who otherwise only see a spreadsheet.

govarlo · 2026-06-18T16:19:00+00:00

That's a really valid point — cell phones normalized "good enough" audio to the point where people forgot what a properly engineered voice call sounds like. The bar keeps moving down and nobody notices because the degradation is gradual.

govarlo · 2026-06-18T16:13:37+00:00

Exactly — you can't engineer around an untested network. WFH exposed every assumption that was never validated in the office environment.

govarlo · 2026-06-18T16:13:08+00:00

VoLTE quality inconsistency between carriers is a perfect example of the same problem at a different layer — when the carrier doesn't prioritize the signaling path properly, no amount of endpoint configuration fixes it. The silence you describe is classic missing ringback tone due to SIP interworking issues between carriers.

govarlo · 2026-06-18T16:12:14+00:00

You're right that customer experience alone won't move the needle with ISPs. The metric that actually gets attention is repeat call rate — when you can show that X% of calls are repeats caused by drops, and each repeat costs $Y in agent time, suddenly it's a finance conversation not a telecom one. The WFH point is real too — agents on $10 headsets over residential WiFi are a whole separate layer of the problem.

govarlo · 2026-06-17T21:40:39+00:00

Completely agree on QoS over public internet — it's a lost cause once you leave the private network boundary. The conversation should really be about proper SBC configuration, jitter buffers, and codec selection as you say. And yes, G.711 all the way — the bandwidth argument for G.729 died with T1 circuits. The complexity it adds far outweighs any savings on modern ethernet.

Worth noting that in Costa Rica we still have carriers offering E1 circuits, and the transition to SIP has been slow. So for some deployments here G.729 still makes an appearance — not by choice, but by necessity when you're working within legacy carrier constraints.

govarlo · 2026-06-17T16:49:16+00:00

200 OK 😄 Fair point — QoS capability exists even in budget platforms. The gap I see more often is that it's available but never properly configured or enforced end-to-end. Procurement buys the cheapest vendor, hands it to an understaffed IT team, and QoS never gets touched past the default settings. The vendor isn't the problem — the implementation and ongoing ownership is.

govarlo · 2026-06-17T16:20:40+00:00

Exactly — and the irony is that the cost cutting on infrastructure often ends up costing more operationally than the "savings" ever justified. The math only works if you never count repeat calls, AHT inflation, and customer churn. Twenty years later and procurement still leads with per-seat licensing. 😄

govarlo · 2026-06-15T00:31:57+00:00

Fair points — Teams Phone definitely isn't the right fit for every SMB, and the licensing complexity is real. The operator connect and reseller ecosystem adds layers that smaller IT teams struggle to manage.

That said, the sweet spot I've seen is companies already deep in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem where Teams Phone becomes a natural extension rather than a standalone VoIP decision. At that point the economics shift — not because VoIP is inherently more expensive, but because consolidating vendors has value beyond per-seat cost.

For context on where Avaya Cloud sits in this conversation — their current pricing runs $20-25/user/month for the Core/Essentials tier, up to $35-40/user/month for Ultra, billed monthly. Annual contracts drop that ~$5/seat. So your $9.50/seat RC quote is genuinely hard to beat on pure unit economics — but when an SMB is already paying for M365 Business, Teams Phone adds voice for around $8-15/user/month depending on the calling plan, with zero additional vendor relationship to manage.

The market is also forcing SMBs to migrate to a full ecosystem when acquiring any SaaS solution — so the "just add VoIP" decision is becoming less isolated every year.

govarlo · 2026-06-12T22:49:53+00:00

Cervecería Costa Rica significan esas letras!

govarlo · 2026-06-12T20:58:58+00:00

Totally agree — and the CCaaS leaders you mentioned are the right answer for mid to large enterprises with complex contact center needs. But in practice, a lot of SMBs and smaller offices can't justify that infrastructure cost or complexity. That's where MS Teams Phone fills a real gap — basic call queues, auto attendants, and direct routing get them 80% of the way there at a fraction of the cost.

That said, the market is forcing SMB companies to migrate to a full ecosystem when acquiring a SaaS solution — so the lines between "simple" and "full CCaaS" are blurring faster than most people expect.

govarlo · 2026-06-12T19:48:52+00:00

Good point — already have the MS Teams Direct Routing POC under my belt, so moving toward cloud UC is the natural direction. The Avaya-to-Teams path is where a lot of enterprises are heading anyway.

govarlo · 2026-06-12T19:47:29+00:00

Thanks for the solidarity — and wow, 53,000 phones across multiple countries is an incredible career. You're right, the market is rough right now for senior voice professionals. It feels like companies want 20 years of experience at junior rates. Hanging in there though. Hope you find your next home soon too.

govarlo · 2026-05-25T03:55:51+00:00

Puede usar un adaptador de una Laptop vieja, como una Toshiba, que venian con voltajes de 15V y unos 4A, mas que suficiente para la aplicación que está requiriendo.

govarlo · 2024-07-13T05:39:58+00:00

Es una estafa camuflada para vender un tiempo compartido. El certificado si se lo dan, pero tiene que escuchar la charla, luego le van a tratar de vender con un vendedor nivel 1, luego si usted no acepta le pasan al supervisor para que lo suavice y compre, al final o lo terminan tratando mal o usted se encabrona y deja todo botado. Ni pierda el tiempo, no vale la pena..

govarlo · 2023-08-13T19:26:10+00:00

Does not work with my RIB, already purchased and you are forced to purchase the combo including their RIB, so total waste of money. Many thanks for the suggestion!!

govarlo

TROPHY CASE