• Understanding the importance of IP for a local municipality
• Exploring the City of Johannesburg’s Telecoms strategy
• Where does VoIP fit in and what will it’s role be in be in uplifting the community?
   

• Is cost saving the begin-all and end-all of the VoIP business case?
• Evaluating the “other” benefits that can be derived from a properly implemented VoIP system
• Investigating which of these value added services have been of the greatest benefit to SAB Miller
   

• Understanding what makes a VoIP implementation successful
• Exploring the elements that need to be considered before deployment
• Key steps that need to followed to ensure success
   

• VoIP in the Contact Centre 
• IP Convergence (The convergence of Telephony as an application)
• Increasing functionality through software applications (Embedded Business Communication Applications) 
• Enhancing business continuity
   

• Assessing the importance of an effective telephony system in a police precinct  
• Key steps to consider when deciding to migrate to VoIP
• Evaluating the challenges that were encountered and how they were overcome
   

• Identifying steps in the process that are often overlooked,causing pain and costing money
• Distinguishing between the your responsibilities and that ofthe vendor company
• Gain insight into how reorganised, converged telecom and IT staff can lead to a successful deployment of enterprise IP Telephony

• Assessing your network to understand what solution will work best and why 
• Highlighting why it’s important to do things right from the beginning to eliminate any unnecessary hick-ups 
• Exploring the joys of successful migration to IP
   

• Understanding why an enterprise would use VoIP as their primary communications platform 
• Assessing the challenges involved and how to compile a robust risk strategy
• Evaluating the best ways to use VoIP to save money and potentially, to do things that couldn’t be done with legacy systems
   

• Examining the future trends in contact centre technology – what’s on the horizon 
• Exploring the likely changes to agent desktops in the next few years
• Presence – changing the way agents interact with customers
• Understanding the role of new protocols and standards, such as SIP, in driving the next developments
   

Exploring the typical technical problem encountered when implementing a IP Telephony platform
Understanding that the problems that might arise from an IP Telephony system might not always be technology related
Change-management – ensuring that your staff is included in the change-over to surmount resistance to change
 

• Evaluating the current status, trends and forecasts with
• Examining VoIP as a convergence enabler
• Investigating how VoIP developments are driving FMC adoption
• Discovering how VoIP developments acts as catalysts for new applications

• How can a liberalised and level playing field be achieved and sustained? 
• Analysing whether regulation is impeding VoIP in the mainstream
• Settinga clear definition of a VoIP provider to guide legislative activities
   

• Analysing the meaning of enterprise Unified Communications 
• Defining the key steps involved in the integration process 
• Understanding the benefits and challenges associated with such an undertaking

• VoIP in a converged world: debating the advantages of having the same network infrastructure for audio, video and data content 
• Providing personalised experiences to subscribers and ensuring relevant content Revenue opportunities for operators seeking to build a VoIPbased
  Quadruple Play offering for their customers 
• Clearly stating the business benefits of converged VoIP, mobile and VoIM services

• Does an extra step in an IP Telephony implementation make life more complex or simpler? 
• Reducing migration pains through legacy assessment
• Evaluating the importance of managing the network when managing your voice 
• Unifying and simplifying the management of voice
  Assessing how to effectively manage hybrid legacy and IP Telephony networks

• Exploring the usage of VoIP as a social upliftment tool 
• Evaluating the potential impact on mass market voice
• The age old struggle – connecting the unconnected

• Impact on migrating from PSTN to NGN using VoIP 
• Challenges and strategies to manage user experience with VoIP services
• Implication of evolving from VoIP to IMS framework with service convergence
• New VoIP opportunities presented by FMC
   

• Presenting the status of IMS rollouts by fixed and mobile operators
• Looking into the challenges of creating IMS-capable handsets
• Enabling innovative VoIP devices
• Extending full VoIP to mobile phones – from push-to-talk to VoIPo3G

• Stressing the importance of effective delivery of VoIP services 
• Understanding the impact of interconnection on the network environment
• The advantages that interconnection offers to networking architectures

• Types of threats and their potential impact on providers and consumers
• Methods used to establish an acceptable level of security risk
• Preventing unauthorised access to critical databases and functions
• Voice fraud – is it a real threat and what are its implications?
   

Closer to the time of the event attendees are invited to submit questions with regard to the above listed topics to enable them to maximise the benefit of this Masterclass. At the end of the masterclass the attendees will have acquired an understanding of the challenges VoIP is presenting to telecommunication operators.

Steffen is responsible for the Group “Packet Network Architectures & Services” within the Communication Technology Division. He has conceived, planned and executed numerous complex projects in the field of telecommunication technology, infrastructure and services.  Beside development of strategies for NGN and migration his focus includes the integration of operational and service aspects in the technology framework. The market focus of the Packet Network architectures & Services group is on telecommunications service providers across the entire world. 

George is in charge of the “Technology Strategy“ Group. His main consulting subjects are Next Generation Networks (NGN) and the development of technology strategies for international telecommunications companies. Before joining Detecon he held management functions in an international telecommunications company, where he gathered more than four years of business and strategy experience. Prior to this George worked for international telecommunications equipment producers with an emphasis on the design and development of voice, IP and data communications networks for public and private customers.