How to Quantify Reliability

How to Quantify Reliability

Here at Millennia Technologies, we get asked all the time about how we can deliver the same kind of reliability that phone lines offer through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. We understand the concern because running your phone service over the internet simply cannot offer 100% reliability. We can get very close to it, but there are simply no providers out there that can realistically offer VoIP service and promise no downtime at all.

When Redundancy Works

Redundancy in VoIP is an alternative route for data to use in case the main route experiences a failure. These additional routes help to minimize complete outages.

To help clients understand the VoIP reliability factor better, providers usually publish their uptime percentages, which represents the amount of time their users experienced downtime over the course of a year.  For the most part, providers have uptimes between 99.99% and 99.999%. However, even though those numbers may seem very close, it makes a significant difference in the amount of downtime a customer will experience. The ideal number is “five 9’s” or, 99.999%.

For example, this chart identifies the vast differences these downtime percentages can create:

Understanding All-Inclusive Percentages

How do you know how your provider stacks up? Ask them. Any reputable provider should be able to provide you with this information as well as information and some clarity as to why they experienced the unscheduled downtime. Additionally, you should be aware of if the projected percentages are “all inclusive.” All-inclusive figures are the unscheduled and scheduled downtime that occurs, including any maintenance or upgrading time that caused service interruptions. The timing of these scheduled downtimes is also good to be made aware of, as well as the possibility of setting up the specific maintenance times for when the business is slow, such as a holiday or after business hours.

Finding a Reliable Provider

It’s an incredibly difficult task to deliver 99.999% availability through VoIP, but it’s possible. Providers like Mitel provide products and services like Mitel Sky that have been built with the highest level of reliability through their single-image architecture. The Mitel Sky platform works from anywhere, including your on-site and mobile locations. Your IT staff is able to manage the system through the browser-based interface.  The architecture of the system is appliance-based without a single point of failure. This means each site and phone switch work like an independent call processor. If there is a failure, the phone will still continue to function for calls because the system switches over to the Public Switched Telephone Network. This is how Mitel Sky is able to deliver the reliability of 99.999%.

Millennia Technologies delivers the Mitel line of products and services because we believe in delivering the highest level of reliability to our customers. If you are interested in getting the best in VoIP services with the lowest risk of experiencing downtown, contact us today.