Hipcom offer the following training courses for partners. To find out more about each of these please click on the relevant course title.

• Hipcom VoIP Foundation Course
• Hipcom Certified VoIP Technician
• Hipcom Certified VoIP Engineer
• Hipcom Certified VoIP Administrator
• Hipcom Go-to-market Training Course

Why is professional VoIP training important?
Over the last few months, Hipcom has identified that there is a general lack of technical understanding of SIP - and it's importance in the delivery of IP Telephony - within the UK telecoms channel. Understanding SIP messaging and the data protocols which are involved is key to implementing VoIP - and this knowledge gap often leaves potential resellers without the required skills to successfully benefit from selling solutions based around these new technologies.

Many of the players who want to get into VoIP are coming from the voice side, whereas IP Telephony is basically a data communications technology. Traditional PBX resellers know that they need to move into this space to protect their businesses and their customer bases, but do not always have the skills which are required to make this possible. And on the other side, even though it is much easier for a data reseller to absorb the knowledge needed to successfully sell and implement VoIP solutions, even data integrators and service providers are lacking some of these core skills - although the gap is undoubtedly not as large.

One of the key challenges which partners face when implementing a IP Telephony solution is the ability to troubleshoot. In a traditional telecoms environment where technical skills have been built up over years of hands-on knowledge, the ability to deal with problems which occur during installation, or subsequent issues thereafter, is relatively straightforward. But with IP Telephony, where there is a general lack of inherent knowledge, there are a whole raft of new issues to deal with, all of which can affect the implementation process and the ongoing stability of the solution. Issues which traditional PBX resellers simply do not have the capability to deal with. Partners need an underlying knowledge of the technology to enable them to successfully implement and troubleshoot an IP Telephony installation, be it a hosted solution or indeed even a complete IP-based telecoms system.

What does the programme offer?
The new Hipcom VoIP Skills Training programme addresses the issues outlined above and equips partners with the necessary skills to confidently deploy, troubleshoot and support hosted VoIP solutions - whatever their start-point - bridging the knowledge gap between traditional telephony and IP Telephony. Based on our experience of working with the channel we know that a skills gap does exist and that lack of technical knowledge is a real issue which needs to be addressed. We have done this by bringing to market a training programme that aims to bridge this knowledge gap, allowing our partners to enter the Hosted VoIP market armed with not only a market-leading hosted offering but also with the appropriate skills to get to market quickly and to succeed in this new space.

The programme starts with a one day VoIP foundation course for those who need the basics and is then followed by a three day certified VoIP technicians course, a two-day certified VoIP engineers course and a one-day VoIP administrators course. In addition, Hipcom also offer a one day go-to-market sales training course to assist resellers in identifying and closing Hosted IP Telephony opportunities.

All of the Hipcom courses are delivered by a professional trainer who has been engaged specifically for the purpose. Hipcom are confident that the training programme is market-leading and provides partners with all the technical skill they could possibly need - and feedback so far from the courses that have already taken place has been extremely positive. The Hipcom training has been designed to maximise the learning experience by combining a mixture of theory and practical learning into a structured approach. All of this leads to a complete certification programme which enables partners to build a comprehensive understanding of the Hipcom implementation of VoIP.