We hear a lot these days about voice networks being engineered with Georedundancy.

I find myself filling in VoIP questionnaires to qualify for a bid, and one question almost always involves Geographic Redundancy.

GR is an important aspect, if there is ever a catastrophic disaster big enough to destroy a good section of the Eastern/Western Seaboard then hopefully your provider’s geo-redundant network can adequately fail-over to a data center in a galaxy far far away.

However, what if your VoIP provider mismanages their infrastructure and switching?

What if they fail to pay the light bill?

There are many things that trump the GeoRedundancy checkbox on an RFP, and while your provider may have control over where they house their equipment, how much control do they have everywhere else?

Most VoIP providers have no direct control over their network and rely heavily on 3rd parties for their entire network environment.

They are completely reliant on data center providers to keep their facility operating but also to keep connectivity up.

Connectivity is typically limited to 1 or 2 carriers.

Hurricane Sandy showed the world that there are huge vulnerabilities for data centers.

Most VoIP companies and many telecom companies went completely offline for anywhere from a couple of days to a couple weeks.

Hosted VoIP providers, during and after Hurricane Sandy, went offline both due to facility issues and also network connectivity issues.

One of the reasons why VoIP providers talk so much about GeoRedundancy is because it is one of the biggest areas under their control.

Many hosted VoIP providers implement a georedundant set up between two or more datacenters incase their first data center goes offline.

If engineered correctly, the backup center can then pick up servicing customers phone systems, routing voice traffic, extensions dials, auto-attendants, etc.

In most scenarios these sites are 3rd party data centers that control the environment your hosted provider works in and thus it is obvious why it is important for them to have a secondary backup.

Some questoins to ask:

• Is your carrier regulated by both the FCC and the PUC?
• Do they own and control every aspect of their switching facilities?
• Do they own and control their own power plant, HVAC and interconnectivity to the rest of the world?
• Do they have dual power feeds coming into their facility, with dual battery strings and generators that run the entire facility?
• Do they have dual diesel delivery contracts with dedicated fuel delivery trucks?
• Do they own all of the HVAC inside the facility and also own the cooling towers on the roof?

As for interconnectivity:

• Do they have numerous direct connections into the PSTN over several fiber providers?
• Are they interconnecting into switch sites spread out geographically?
• Is your provider relying on just one or two connections?
• Does your provider have numerous routes deployed for their core network in order to maximize their VoIP platform?

Clearly, breaking down and examining the details of your VoIP provider is important. History of success is also important:

• What was their uptime during any of the past major hurricanes, before and in the aftermath?
• What happened when they ran out of power completely? Are they able to disconnect from the commercial power grid and sustain power for two months or more?

During Hurricane Sandy, for example, several fiber providers were impacted taking several VoIP providers offline.

A good provider should have many redundant connections with disparate carriers, so that customers never miss a single call.

To make my point, while geographic redundancy is important for numerous reasons, when it comes to trafficking voice calls there are many important factors that the average Hosted VoIP Company does not provide.

Besides for years, and up until today, we have been concerned with just ensuring a solid working replacement to our premises-based PBXs.

Customers refer to it as the phone box in the back room.

They know it as being rock-solid.

It has 20+ copper lines going into the back of it, a PRI, built-in redundancy, and rarely does anyone ask about its Georedundant twin sister.

Phil Howard – The Most Bearded Man in Telecom