Routing phone calls over Internet could make teleworking easier

Government workers, given the opportunity to telework and abandon their commutes, are often reeled back into their offices, held there by their office telephones.

The chance of missing an important call and the hassle of distributing personal home or cell phone numbers ends many a worker's teleworking plans.

A recently popularized technology that routes phone calls over the Internet to a computer using a high-speed connection, known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, could end the need-to-be-at-the-phone predicament for would-be teleworking federal workers.

Addressing a breakout session at the Excellence in Government conference, an event co-sponsored by Government Executive, Lewis Eigen, president of the Rockville, Md.-based Social and Health Services Ltd., a division of Orc Macro, said that using VoIP allows workers to do their jobs away from the office and remain connected to their traditional land telephone line.

"What we have with VoIP is a way of deploying people," Eigen said. "Right now, we are tethered to our offices, but [with VoIP] any place that has a high speed Internet connection, the worker has their telephone."

Telephone companies have been touting Internet-based routing for years using converters to switch phone calls from an analog format to digital and back again. But only recently, with the growth of high-speed Internet connections such as T1 lines and DSL, has the prospect of routing calls entirely over the Internet become practical.

While there are some financial incentives to adopt VoIP technology, Eigen said cost savings should not be the primary reason for agencies moving from the traditional analog method of connecting telephones to digital VoIP. He estimated an initial cost savings of about 10 percent if VoIP was universally implemented in an agency.

Eigen said that the capability VoIP gives workers to receive and make calls using their work phone numbers over the Internet eliminates the need for many workers to go into the office and makes the change worthwhile.

"At any place that has a high-speed Internet connectivity, [the employee] also has their telephone," Eigen said. "If I am in Starbucks and I have my wireless, I can get my phone calls."

Federal agencies are under pressure from Congress to increase the number of workers who are allowed to work away from the office, at home, or from work centers near their homes.

Benefits traditionally cited by supporters include reducing traffic in large metropolitan areas and improving employees' lifestyles. But since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telework also is considered a means for continuing the government's work in emergency situations.

During the questions portion of the session, an Agriculture Department employee asked why at the phone connection at the agency's downtown office, which partially relies on VoIP, will go down for as long as a day.

Eigen said that systems will become overburdened if an organization relies on both analog and digital VoIP for its phone connection. He also said that the quality of the connection can be limited if VoIP is not given a high priority on the agency's Internet bandwidth.