VOIP for Your Business
Vioce Over Internet or VOIP For Short is Promising technology for delivering the voice information over the Internet Protocol (IP) . Here you will Find Complete information on VOIP , VOIP phones, VOIP Software, VOIP gateways, VOIP Gate Keepers VOIP Proxies, VOIP SDKS etc.
Introduction
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology system that transmits telephone calls over a data network, giving the miss to traditional telephone lines. The idea sounds simple, but this technology advancement has tremendous implications for business communications.
How VoIP Works
VoIP as a technology has developed against a broader advancement in technology- namely convergence of voice, video and data into a single network. This is a development with huge potential in many ways- saving telecommunication costs, enhancing productivity and enabling mobility and flexibility for the people.
VoIP can work across two networking situations. First, IP telephony can work over a local area network (LAN). This can be a good option for communications within the office. It can also extend to voice transmissions between people of the same organization working from different locales, over the company’s network.
VoIP can also be carried over a private or public wide area network (WAN). The private WAN is a more secure medium for communications than a public WAN.
Why a Business would Consider VoIP
Let us first take a look at the traditional ways companies manage their voice communications. Large companies have PBX systems, which are private phone systems within the facility. In PBX, users share a certain number of telephone lines to make outgoing calls. Some companies have a variation of PBX called Centrex. Centrex or central office exchange service has all its PBX routing done at the local telephone company. Key Systems are another model of very small PBXs, ideal for small offices.
None these systems are of help in saving call costs. The costs can be enormous when it comes to long distance calls. And consider that long distance calls are becoming an integral part of business communications in the expanding global scenario.
Further, these conventional systems are difficult to change or expand as the company grows without going in for huge investments. They cannot support more advanced communication technologies. Moreover these are proprietary systems, so companies have only the limited facilities that their phone company provides.
These are precisely the drawbacks that VoIP can get rid of. It is both cost effective and easy to implement and upgrade.
Benefits of VoIP
VoIP offers all the features of traditional telephony such as call waiting, caller ID, unified messaging and directory services. As VoIP is a standard open protocol, businesses can easily integrate their own audio applications or other custom made applications with it.
VoIP lends itself to easy expansion at little extra cost or requirement of elaborate hardware or software infrastructure.
VoIP gives multiple options- it can be used in the form of a VoIP phone that is quite like the conventional desk phone. VoIP can also be used as ‘softphone’ loaded into desktops, laptops or PDAs. Users can use their VoIP phone number from any location.
VoIP supports the convergence of data, video and voice services. Adopting VoIP will help companies benefit from a large range of multimedia applications being developed constantly.
Who can Benefit from VoIP?
Small businesses are the most typical candidates for adopting VoIP, although everyone can in fact derive its benefits. Here are a few situations where VoIP can help.
If your business is expanding and you need a larger facility.
If you have a good percentage of employees who have to travel on work often, or have people working full time or par-time from home.
If your company is making acquisitions and needs to integrate with another business.
If you have offices across the globe
If you have a large number of incoming calls.
If your business has not upgraded the telephone set up in the last five years.
If your Ethernet penetration is good and you have communication equipment that is less than three years old.
If your industry demands strong customer service levels.
Analyze First 0
That said, some companies do find complexities that hamper them from deriving maximum benefit from VoIP. Lack of planning and proper advice from experts and wrong deployment patterns can all lead to the technology doing more harm than good.
Successful adaptation of a VoIP network therefore should start with a clear analysis of your business model and its particular needs. Short term and long term requirements both have to be integrated into the planning process.