VoIP Phone Business: Why it is good for your business

    A VoIP phone or IP phone uses Voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet, instead of the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN). Digital IP-based telephone service uses control protocols such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) or various other proprietary protocols. As such VoIP phone business has been booming for the last two decades. Companies that provide these services such as Cisco are known all over the world and they have even gone to the extent of providing hardware for their systems. It is also worth noting that VoIP is also available on many smartphones.

    VoIP phone business systems can be simple software-based soft phones or purpose-built hardware devices that appear much like an ordinary telephone or a cordless phone. Traditional PSTN phones are used as VoIP phones with analog telephone adapters (ATA). Two combined signal-and-power wired cable interfaces are in common use to communicate between computer networks or computers and physically separate VoIP phones by means of using USB cables and Power over Ethernet. The latter is preferred in industry such as large scale call centers or PBX replacement applications, because PoE has the following advantages over USB:

•       Single connector: PoE relies on the single uniform RJ-45 connector, a close model of the proven RJ-11 connector used for analog phones. By contrast there are six USB connectors and each change to the USB standard so far has involved at least one new type of connector.
• 
  
•        It has greater and more flexible power allocation: PoE switches typically support 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 or more ports each, with each device drawing up to 30W. By contrast, a USB 3.0 only supports up to 4.5W devices, insufficient for cordless, conference, videoconferencing and other common-use devices. This makes it more reliable for VoIP phone business systems.
• 
  
•      Ethernet protocol: Scalable from its original 1 megabit to modern 100 gigabit applications, copper Ethernet has no peer for scalability. It makes effective use of many different cable types (especially cat3 and coaxial cable) and has robust wireless equivalents, that is, 802.11/WiFi when power and wired security is not required.
• 
  
•      It has a much greater cord range. While DC power diminishes rapidly over long cables, and is inefficient to supply further than 3m for high-draw devices, the low power draw of modern indoor radios permits full use of cat5 Ethernet cables of up to 100m length. By contrast USB supports under 3m and with extensions and boosters perhaps 10m maximum.

    Therefore, USB and soft phone PC applications are considered transitional by many VoIP phone business systems users and makers of larger telephone switches, used only to build markets for VoIP that will eventually shift over to the more robust PoE technology shipped by Cisco, Siemens, Alcatel and other large switch makers. A VoIP phone business application may have many features an analog phone does not support, such as e-mail-like IDs for contacts that may be easier to remember than names or phone numbers, or easy sharing of contact lists among multiple accounts. Generally the features of VoIP phones follow those of Skype, Google Voice and other PC-based phone services, which have richer feature sets but because they rely on mainstream operating systems' IP support which lack latency-related audio problems.

    VoIP phone business systems make good sense for small businesses. In fact, recent research finds that more than one-third of all businesses are now using a VoIP phone system, with the vast majority of those being businesses with fewer than 50 employees. With VoIP, voice data is sent [via an Internet connection] in digital form rather than plugging into a traditional phone jack like you would over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). This technology was introduced commercially in the 1990s, VoIP technology has improved significantly since then, and so has its popularity. In the early days, users complained that the sound quality was not as good on VoIP as it was on a landline, but those issues are not a concern today.

    VoIP phone business systems now take advantage of advanced high-definition codecs that have vastly improved the voice quality, making modern VoIP networks sound even better than landline networks. In addition to better sound quality, the cloud is also making VoIP a more viable option for small businesses. Rather than having to run special wiring and install special equipment, companies that choose a cloud-hosted VoIP phone solution do not need to purchase any equipment or employ an IT staff to install and maintain it. Cloud VoIP systems dispense with most of the up-front hardware and software and only require a broadband connection to activate. This reduces the amount of capital expenditure needed and makes it easy to turn up and deploy. The advancement of VoIP technology and its relatively low cost make VoIP an ideal choice for small business, but businesses should still do their homework before committing.

    Determining if a VoIP phone business system makes sense for a small business all depends on the quality of its network and its needs. Most importantly, you want to ensure they have enough upload bandwidth for the amount of phone calls they expect to have running concurrently. In addition, businesses also have to factor in whether they have enough bandwidth to handle the other traffic on the network, and whether or not their firewall and router can prioritize VoIP traffic over regular Internet traffic. If the network can support it, than VoIP is likely a good option for many businesses. For businesses where VoIP does makes sense, there are many benefits, including reduction in costs in terms of both maintenance and monthly recurring usage, ease of use and enhanced features that you would previously only find in an enterprise-level PBX.

    Voicemail, virtual receptionists, call forwarding, call recording, on-hold music, voicemail-to-email, conference calling, video conferring, instant messaging, call screening, missed alerts and call logs are among the many features offered by most VoIP providers. Using a cloud-based solution also makes it simple to add phone lines when new employees are hired. One of the biggest advantages of VoIP, especially for businesses with employees who work remotely or in multiple locations, is that it allows employees to bring their business phone line with them anywhere they go. Most VoIP providers have a mobile app that can be set up to ring when a customer or client calls an employee's business line.