VoIP For Small Businesses
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) may have a complex name, but the technology is not hard to understand. Simply put, VoIP takes phone calls over the internet instead of using conventional phone networks. Calls between VoIP users never touch the phone network and can therefore be FREE because they never get near telephone companies’ billing systems.
Calls that start or finish on VoIP are often cheap because they only touch the conventional phone networks when they ‘pop out’. Because those calls spend less time on the phone network, phone companies charge less for them.
For small businesses, this results in the chance to save a lot of money on phone calls. National and local calls for example, can often cost as little as £0.04 using VoIP. Long distance international calls can often fall below £0.04 a minute. Line rental charges often plummet, thanks to the fact that many VoIP lines can co-exist on a single internet connection.
Those savings have captured small businesses collective imagination to the extent that even established telephony players like Demon and BT offer VoIP services, while a mosquito squadron of smaller players are also chasing the VoIP pound. One of the reasons they are attractive is that VoIP can comfortably co-exist with the PABXs* and other telephony equipment small businesses own, so the move to VoIP does not have to come at the expense of features like voice mail or transferring calls.
New players however, are now taking matters a step further by offering to host all the necessary equipment to operate a VoIP service and thereby relieving small business from the need to acquire and maintain a PABX at all.
*PABX = Private Automatic Branch eXchange – this telephone network is commonly by businesses that use call centres or call routing within the office. PABX allows a single access number to offer multiple lines to outside callers while providing a range of external lines to internal callers or staff.
Please Note - All Prices Quoted Are Correct at Time of Posting
What is VoIP – The Basics
The fact that Skype has been purchased by eBay proves that the big players are taking notice of VoIP and with multinationals such as Microsoft, BT and Sky jostling for position, the future of VoIP looks bright. VoIP first came to peoples attention in the mid-nineties when people were looking for cheaper alternatives to landline and mobile calls. It is only in the past few years that VoIP has become a viable alternative to the aforementioned telecommunications and has gained a widespread use in the internet community.
The spread of VoIP can be attributed to the increasing numbers of users who access the internet over a broadband connection – the faster the broadband speed the better as anyone who has had a VoIP conversation with a friend sounding like Cher performing “Do you believe in life after love” can testify! This matched with improved performance from VoIP providers and more technical proficient and affordable equipment has led to VoIP being tipped as “the next big thing” in telecommunications.
Please Note - All Prices Quoted Are Correct at Time of Posting