Efficient network setup can enhance the quality of your VoIP experience. Even if you are averse to VoIP terminations for routing long distance traffic, within your call center, you can take advantage of VoIP. Here is a simple but efficient topology for Asterisk based call center setup.
- Asterisk based contact center network layout
Here all the agents, supervisor and admin phones are within the LAN and have assured bandwidth. Good quality IP phones from Polycom, SNOM, Linksys and other vendors can serve as the admin phones. Agents can use softphones like X-Lite or Eyebeam. An enterprise grade call center software like Indosoft Q-Suite will provide all the necessary features to setup and manage an advanced contact center. I recommend DELL 2950 category of servers which has served as very well in the past. The Dell web managed switches are inexpensive and work well within the contact centers. We implemented our first VoIP based contact center using Asterisk in 2003 with the long distance traffic terminated on PRI using Digium TDM board.
I am generally tasked with the Web DEMO of Indosoft call center software Q-Suite for Asterisk. A Web DEMO is usually very interactive where the viewer has full control of my laptop and we can do almost everything (not run the predictive dialer, of course). All the Inbound IVR, Queue, Agent nail-up and an incredible amount of contact center functionality, all are with a few clicks of the button. At the end of the demo we will invariably enter the topic of cost of setting up a call center platform.
The costs of setting up contact centers depend on the infrastructure and the technology platform. The configuration of your contact center will impact the capacity and overall cost. There are the costs for telephony and LAMP servers as well as the recording storage server (should you look at long term storage). The cost of any licenses like G729 Codec and Skype to Asterisk. It is important to remember that the most important and valuable components like Asterisk PBX, MySQL database, Apache Web Server, Ubuntu Linux all come without any price thanks to the incredible world of Open Source Software. The cost of the call center software, setup, installation and support have to be added to the cost of hardware and infrastructure. For a 100 seat installation (excluding the cost of agent machines), the cost per seat can run around 400 to 500 USD per seat. Compare this to what I can recall from the year 2000 when was in excess of 5000 USD per seat. To be honest, those contact centers were no where near as sophisticated as the present day call centers. Truly, I am amazed at the cost reduction.
2000:
The servers were all stacked on a table at the back of the main development room. In the picture, the entire network infrastructure for the company is present. There are 5 servers pictured:
- On the left, hidden is indoserv, the mail e-mail and web server
- On the left in front, is havana a dev/file server
- On the right, in behind is paris, a spare server
- On the right on front is london, the firewall
- On the right, under london & paris is cairo, the dial-in server
- To the right of the servers is a 700VA UPS, 16 port 10Mbps hub and the modem for cairo.
- Temperature control was provided by the in-window air conditioner
- A KVM was purchased shortly after this picture was taken
The only thing in that picture that is still in use is the table, which is now in Rajan’s office.
Compare it to today:
- 2 cabinets (older machines are tower servers and are on the shelves to the left)
- 8 UPSes
- 20 servers
- 2 16 port KVMs
- 5 24 port Gigabit switches (most are in a small rack attached to the wall and not in this picture)
- Temperature controlled by the 12,000 BTU mini split AC (we don’t have to worry about heating in the winter)