VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. It’s a method of sending voice calls over an IP data network, such as the internet.
Still not quite the ‘ah-ha’ moment you were looking for?
VoIP is basically a phone service that works over the internet rather than using traditional phone lines such as PSTN (normal phone lines) and ISDN (digital phone lines). It is one alternative way of making phone calls and can quite often be much cheaper!
It can also go by other names, including IP Telephone or Internet Telephony.
So… it’s like Skype then?
Yes… and no. ‘Yes’ because both VoIP and Skype take sound (and in Skype’s case, video too) and digitise them so they can be sent across the internet as data. ‘No’ because VoIP generally uses a physical desk-phone, giving a more traditional type of end user experience.
Why should I care?
The main reason for massive numbers of people turning to VoIP technology is the cost, but not just that, BT are looking to stop selling traditional ISDN (digital phone lines) connections in 2020 with a view to turning off old style connections by 2025.
In general, a telephone service via VoIP costs less than an equivalent service from traditional providers.
There are also some cost savings due to using a single network to carry voice and data. This is especially true when businesses have an existing, under-utilised network infrastructure that they can use for a VoIP based phone system without any additional costs.
That’s not all…
Feature rich
Traditional telephone sytems have come a long way and offer a lot of functionality such as Hunt groups (distributing phone calls from a single telephone number to a group of several phones), call queues and interactive voice prompt menus (IVR). However, some of these functions are only available on expensive enterprise telephone systems. With VoIP, these features and many more are available to businesses of all sizes. What’s more is that new features can be added by the provider with no need for the customers equipment to be upgraded or any addional cost.
Scalable
As your business grows, so can the system. There are no expensive upgrades, phone system updates or licensing costs — all that is needed is the addition of an extension and an extra handset.
Flexible
Anywhere there’s a connection to the internet, customers can connect to their VoIP phone — in the office, at home or even on holiday, they can still make and receive calls seemlessly. Incoming phone calls are automatically routed to your VoIP phone wherever you plug it in.
Geographic presence
In business it’s sometimes desirable to have a presence in other parts of the country. With a VoIP platform, you can choose a number from our wide-range of geographic and non-geographic numbers at no extra cost.
Revolutionary technology
Less than two decades old, VoIP has revolutionised communication all around the world. Although not really a new thing, its real-world application has been slow on the uptake (from a layman’s perspective!).
But without realising it, the majority of us are already making VoIP calls everyday. Communication companies use VoIP technologies to connect their analogue networks. By converting analogue calls into digital ones and back again, they seriously reduce the infrastructure required, especially for long-distance and international calls.
As the infrastructure goes digital, VoIP will overtake analogue as the most popular form of voice communication.
In a few years, traditional phone lines will be a thing of the past.
Using VoIP for business? Remember to lay the groundwork
VoIP can cost you a lot less than traditional telecoms. Companies use VoIP to conduct work conferences and keep costs down to avoid the usual charges you get from a regular telephone service.
But no matter how good your VoIP system is, it won’t perform properly unless your internet connection is up to spec and is able to support the number of VoIP extensions that have been ordered, as well as any additional load being placed on it by other services (such as accessing the internet, and uploading or downloading files). It’s a good idea to check your bandwidth and internet speed when looking into a VoIP based system.
In a nutshell
The future of VoIP is a bright one. It simplifies many communications processes and offers a greater-degree of flexibility than traditional means of communication. Its growth over just a few decades has been astounding, there is no telling where it can go from here.
The technology behind our Hosted VoIP platform has been developed in-house to our own exacting standards to ensure it is scalable, secure, robust and reliable.
