The expanding adoption of digital telephony and teleconferencing in today’s business has brought Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology into the IT mainstream. When working optimally, VoIP can provide businesses with simplified administration, lower telephone service bills, improved collaboration and productivity, flexible phone system deployment, and disaster preparedness. However, there are two basic obstacles confronting administrators in maintaining optimal VoIP operations: security and quality of service (QoS).

Like all IP traffic, VoIP can be prone to security threats from malicious attacks. VoIP is particularly susceptible to Denial of Service (DoS), digital eavesdropping, toll fraud and trunk hijacking, exposing businesses to revenue loss, data leakage, and fraudulent expense. Additionally, voice and video is only effective in real-time. QoS inhibitors such as latency, jitter, packet loss and echo degrade communications. These occur when there are delays or disruptions in IP packet traffic caused by network throughput bottlenecks or traffic bursts. However, the IP protocol was not designed to provide the bandwidth management or traffic prioritization features needed to counter these problems, and so requires additional networking technologies to ensure acceptable QoS levels for VoIP.

The ideal solution would deliver comprehensive protection against VoIP security threats, while providing the bandwidth and prioritization tools needed to ensure QoS.