Voice over IP
is one of the hottest new technologies available for telecommunications
today. Its proper application can improve productivity and reduce
the costs of managing your telephone system. But using VoIP requires
expertise that is not widely available as of yet. By using experienced
application consultants like those available through BCC Telecom,
your company can reap the benefits and avoid the potential shortfalls
that some companies experience. Remember: the benefits of VoIP require
proper design and architecture of your network.
When people talk about Voice over IP, there
are really two areas to differentiate. First is the use of VoIP
internal to your company: to replace or supplement your phone system,
and for inter-office calls. The second area applies to all your
calls outside of your company. With that in mind..
What Makes
VoIP Phone Systems Different?
When your company uses VoIP for its internal phone system, you have
the opportunity to eliminate the costs associated with installing
new phone jacks, figuring out what cables go where, and the challenges
of adding voicemail boxes and configuring your phone system. VoIP
phones simply plug into any Ethernet jack in your office. The phone
itself can be moved to any jack on your network without the need
to make changes to your phone system configuration. Many companies
will pay over $100 for every move or add to their phone system -
this cost goes away completely.
How Can VoIP
Benefit Inter-Office Calls?
If your company has multiple offices, VoIP can allow you to merge
your telecom network to further reduce your costs of maintaining
phone systems and managing moves and adds. A company with four offices
in one state can now have a single operator or voicemail system
to handle all four offices. Inter-office calls can be reduced to
a zero cost per minute, while long distance calls can be provided
at a lower cost per minute.
What Other
Benefits Can My Company Obtain From VoIP?
How would you like to have your voicemail messages appear via email,
saving you the time of logging into, navigating the menus and hearing
each voicemail? With integrated messaging, you can simply click
on the email attachment to hear the message, either from your desk
or while on the road. Using your cursor, you can speed forward or
go back to listen again. If you want others to hear a voicemail
message, simply forward it via email to anyone you want.
If you are traveling but want to receive
calls from certain people on your cell phone, VoIP allows you to
specify phone numbers from incoming callers that you would like
forwarded directly to your cell phone; or if you'd like, all calls
can ring to your cell phone.
While traveling on the road, your "road
warriors" can install "soft-phones" on their laptops
to connect to the office phone system via their wireless internet
connections while in hotels, thereby operating as if they are sitting
in the office.
These are just some of the benefits that
VoIP can provide your company.
Do I Need
a New Phone System?
This is where BCC Telecom is different. We are not in business to
sell you new phone systems. You can gradually add VoIP functionality
to your present phone system, using a variety of external devices
to expand your telephone network. Or, perhaps you are ready for
a new phone system anyway, in which case a VoIP system may suit
your needs. Since we do not sell equipment, we advise our clients
how to obtain the most functionality for their equipment budgets.
Our goal is to control your cost, not obtain fat commissions from
big equipment sales.
Can I use
the Internet to Eliminate My Long Distance Bill?
In a word - no. The quality of internet-based VoIP calls today are
influenced by the vagaries of the internet. There are certain times
of day when the quality of your calls will be reduced due to heavy
internet traffic. This typically is not acceptable to large companies
with heavy phone usage. By the same token, smaller companies often
find this not to be enough of a problem to offset the cost savings
that result. They understand what they have and are happy to be
on the leading edge of a new technology. In any case, proper architecture
of a VoIP system utilizing the internet will ALWAYS have associated
plain old phone lines for backup in case there is a problem with
the internet connection.
What About
Outsourcing My Phone System?
For smaller companies, outsourcing your VoIP phone system might
be the right solution. This eliminates the investment in equipment
and maintenance, since these services are provided by a VoIP services
provider providing Hosted Centrex. Through careful planning and
installation of internet circuits with managed Quality of Service,
you can have the benefit of most of the features found in a full
phone system for a nominal monthly fee per phone number. Unless
the location is for just one or two telecommuting employees, BCC
Telecom does not recommend the use of Hosted Centrex on low-cost
DSL lines since they do not guarantee Quality of Service.
Hosted Centrex provides all the features
of the best phone systems. For companies with telecommuters or employees
that work from home, this approach will allow everyone to be part
of the corporate phone network through the use of their DSL or Cable
Modem line. Home workers can be part of your customer service department,
accounting, or any other department and they will appear, from a
phone perspective, to be in the office while working at home.
How Are VoIP
Calls Connected Through the Internet?
If your company routes calls through the internet, instead of using
your local phone company to connect a call, your call is routed
to the local VoIP phone service provider. Your call is then connected
to the public telephone network exactly like any other regular phone
call. So your use of the internet is only to connect from your office
to the service provider, who may be less than 150 miles away. The
service provider has T1 phone lines that connect your calls at a
very low cost per minute, often half the cost of what you may pay
today. The fact that the service provider is so close reduces the
risk of packet loss, latency and jitter that can affect voice quality. |
