VoIP phone systems have come a long way from the early days of glitchy calls and limited features. Today, they’re an integral part of small- to medium-sized businesses’ telecommunications strategies. But what exactly are they and what benefits can they bring your business?
What is VoIP?
VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a technology that allows you to make and receive calls over the internet. The main advantage over your traditional phone system is the added functionality that comes from sending voice data with “IP” protocols as opposed to over landlines. The results in the following benefits:
Plenty of useful features
With landlines, you are limited to making and receiving calls, transferring calls, and getting voicemails. VoIP allows you to do all that while letting you leverage other features like caller ID, video conferencing, integrated contact lists, and phone extensions that can be reached at your desk or anywhere else you go with your mobile phone.
That makes calling and call management easy, allowing you to tend to your customers’ needs quickly, collaborate in real-time, and enhance overall productivity.
Efficient use of bandwidth
Did you know that approximately 50% of a typical phone conversation is silence? VoIP fills in the empty silence with bandwidth allocation. When a user is not talking, bandwidth is conserved and reallocated to other users. VoIP also features redundancy removal and compression technologies which recognize certain speech patterns. This makes voice data less bulky for improved call quality.
Enhanced flexibility
VoIP can be used over Wi-Fi and just about any type of networks. As such, complications due to incompatibility are eliminated, resulting in an integrated yet flexible voice infrastructure capable of supporting many types of communications.
Real-time fax transmission
With traditional phone systems, long distance fax services are expensive and often suffer from poor data quality due to weak analog signals. Additionally, certain machines might be incompatible with each other, causing further breakdowns in the process.
VoIP resolves all this by using a fax interface to convert data into packets that ensure complete and reliable delivery of data. In fact, with a VoIP phone system, you won’t even need a fax machine for sending and receiving faxes.
Better connectivity
VoIP supports a combination of different data types to make call routing and signaling more flexible. This is extremely useful when developing and deploying applications that transmit data between computers. And since VoIP software runs on servers and is operated via web browser, you can access those applications from anywhere at anytime, too.
Cost effective
Internet calling rates are much cheaper than that of traditional landlines. This significantly reduces long distance calling costs. And because VoIP is completely scalable, you’ll only pay for the features you use and can add or remove features as needed.
Just like any technology, you need an experienced provider to help you make the best decisions when it comes to customization, deployment, and support. If you have any questions about VoIP or are looking to integrate it into your current technology infrastructure, give us a call.
