The Advantages of VoIP for Small and Medium Businesses
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an emerging technology sector that can be immediately viable and cost effective for small and medium businesses (SMBs). These systems use phones that operate as normal to the employee, but can change the analogue sounds of a voice into digital packets to be transmitted over the internet. These are then changed back at the other end, either to another VoIP phone or to an ordinary phone line.
VoIP providers offer two ways for business customers to connect to the network. The first is an analog telephone adaptor (ATA). This connects to your computer and has a port for a regular phone. It will then work as normal. There are also specific IP phones, which are the most likely candidates for use in SMBs. These will be plugged into your internet connection and will then work just like a normal phone.
VoIP carries some advantages for everyone; cheaper phone calls are the top reason to join this new trend. It's free to call one internet phone from another and both local and long distance phone calls to ordinary numbers are much cheaper than with a standard provider. For SMBs, this is ideal, particularly if you have multiple offices, even better if they are in different countries. All calls will be free, so having VoIP in every office will save you huge amounts on communication.
Further advantages include many necessary features for businesses as standard, such as call forwarding, three-way calling, call waiting, and caller id. Traditional phone companies charge for these services, but they are free through VoIP providers. The infrastructure to support VoIP is also in every office, as all computers are already connected to the internet. Implementing it is simple and many companies [http://www.octaviais.co.uk/telephone-systems/voip] provide installation of VoIP phone systems. Purchasing multiple extensions, as many businesses will need, is cheaper than with traditional phone providers as well, and the service can be extended to mobiles with ease.
There are some disadvantages to VoIP which are currently being addressed. The first and perhaps most important is call quality. Since the packets are transmitted over the internet and have to be compressed and decompressed, they are occasionally lost or corrupted, leading to dropped words and garbling on either end. This is addressed through quality testing and careful monitoring, and ever-faster internet connection means that this will become less of a problem as years go on. There is also no way to make an emergency call from a VoIP phone as yet, but this is currently being addressed by a variety of providers. At the moment, it is important for every office to retain one standard phone line in order to avoid any potential problems in this respect.
Lastly, if the power or the internet connection goes out, VoIP phones will not work. In an office environment, however, both of these situations would cause most work to cease anyway, and as such may not be as much of an issue as for a home consumer.
VoIP providers offer two ways for business customers to connect to the network. The first is an analog telephone adaptor (ATA). This connects to your computer and has a port for a regular phone. It will then work as normal. There are also specific IP phones, which are the most likely candidates for use in SMBs. These will be plugged into your internet connection and will then work just like a normal phone.
VoIP carries some advantages for everyone; cheaper phone calls are the top reason to join this new trend. It's free to call one internet phone from another and both local and long distance phone calls to ordinary numbers are much cheaper than with a standard provider. For SMBs, this is ideal, particularly if you have multiple offices, even better if they are in different countries. All calls will be free, so having VoIP in every office will save you huge amounts on communication.
Further advantages include many necessary features for businesses as standard, such as call forwarding, three-way calling, call waiting, and caller id. Traditional phone companies charge for these services, but they are free through VoIP providers. The infrastructure to support VoIP is also in every office, as all computers are already connected to the internet. Implementing it is simple and many companies [http://www.octaviais.co.uk/telephone-systems/voip] provide installation of VoIP phone systems. Purchasing multiple extensions, as many businesses will need, is cheaper than with traditional phone providers as well, and the service can be extended to mobiles with ease.
There are some disadvantages to VoIP which are currently being addressed. The first and perhaps most important is call quality. Since the packets are transmitted over the internet and have to be compressed and decompressed, they are occasionally lost or corrupted, leading to dropped words and garbling on either end. This is addressed through quality testing and careful monitoring, and ever-faster internet connection means that this will become less of a problem as years go on. There is also no way to make an emergency call from a VoIP phone as yet, but this is currently being addressed by a variety of providers. At the moment, it is important for every office to retain one standard phone line in order to avoid any potential problems in this respect.
Lastly, if the power or the internet connection goes out, VoIP phones will not work. In an office environment, however, both of these situations would cause most work to cease anyway, and as such may not be as much of an issue as for a home consumer.
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