VOIP Phone Systems - What is VOIP?
VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol is simply the packaging and transferring voice data over the internet, so the data from your telephone conversations needn’t be carried by traditional telephone networks. Understandably this has a number of benefits for the consumer but most significantly, VoIP is now lowering the cost of telephone calls.
VoIP is not a particularly new idea; in fact, the ability to transfer voice data over the internet has been around since the early 1970’s. Its commercial applications however, have only become widely available in conjunction with cheap broadband. As the greater data transfer speeds have made VoIP more reliable and the low cost of broadband has made it economically sensible.
The Basics
As VoIP carries data over broadband rather than traditional telephone lines you will, of course, need to have a broadband connection and a telephone capable of functioning on a VoIP system. These are the standard telephone options:
- A VoIP telephone is perhaps the most straight forward option. This is a telephone which looks like any other but is specifically designed to be used with VoIP, as it has an Ethernet connection to plug directly into your broadband network. Furthermore, VoIP phones normally give you the best call quality, as they are specifically designed for the purpose.
- A VoIP adaptor will allow you to use your traditional touch-tone phone on a VoIP network. Usually these plug into your phone at one end and then your broadband network at the other.
- A software phone is a telephone program (like Skype) that is downloaded to your computer. Although these can be invaluable whilst on the move, they generally give a lower call quality than VoIP phones or VoIP adapters. This is because they rely on your computers’ signal processing ability, which is usually worse at dealing with voice data than the processors built into telephones.
Once you have a broadband connection and phone, you simply need to arrange an account with one of the many VoIP providers and you are ready to start making calls. There is wide a range of private and business telephone suppliers who can offer a VoIP account but often the cheapest option is to purchase a combined VoIP and broadband internet package.
VoIP’s Benefits
By sending data over the internet, VoIP providers can offer a whole range of benefits over and above traditional telephone systems, especially to businesses or high volume customers. Here are a few of the most important:
Cost
Due to the nature of the internet, there’s no such thing as a long-distance email. The development of VoIP may one day render the idea of a long-distance call just as ridiculous. As VoIP sends its data over the internet it does have more similarities with email than it does with traditional telephony. Helped by cheap infrastructure and running costs, VoIP can cut the real price of phone calls to a fraction of traditional telephone rates. It is not unusual, for instance, to pay a fixed line rental and then to receive free calls to landlines anywhere in the world. Furthermore, features that incur additional costs with normal telephone suppliers, such as conference calling, video conferencing and itemised billing are usually much cheaper on VoIP systems.
Multiple lines
With traditional telephone networks, the number of external calls you can make at any given time is determined by the number of physical lines or trunks your telephone network has and as such, adding capacity usually means having more lines put in. With a VoIP system however, your call capacity is determined by your internet bandwidth and therefore you can add lines with the minimum of expense provided you have enough spare capacity to accommodate the extra data.
Remote Working
Working remotely from home or in multiple locations is becoming ever more popular and VoIP is a far more accommodating telephone system in this respect. All one really needs to make VoIP calls is a broadband connection, so once connected to the internet (wherever you are) you can logon to a VoIP service provider and start making calls. Significantly though, you can retain the same “office” telephone number from multiple locations, so your actual location is indistinguishable to your client; or alternatively, you can have a number of different “local” telephone numbers all from one office.
Reliability
The biggest initial barrier to VoIP was its reliability. As VoIP transfers data via the internet, it goes without saying that if you experience problems with your internet connection, you will also have trouble with your phone. Traditional phone lines are powered by the network provider and in the event of a power failure most lines will continue to work using the suppliers’ back-up generators or batteries. However, this is not the case with broadband connections, as your network of routers and adapters will be dependent on your own power supply and will cease to function during a power-cut.
In most countries, power supplies are reliable enough for this to not be of any great concern. However, one must also consider the reliability of your broadband connection. Although quality is always improving, some broadband connections can have intermittent reliability; especially when networks are congested. VoIP sends information in “packets” and if these are lost or delayed, the call quality can drop and the caller will experience either jittery sound or periods of lost sound. The data is also moved comparatively slowly compared to traditional telephone systems and this sometimes results in frustratingly delayed conversation.
Reliability is perhaps most important to business customers, as many industries cannot function without a working telephone network. It’s certainly worth noting then, that VoIP is now the technology of choice in most call centre environments, which suggests that the industry has matured enough to allay the reliability fears of big business. With this endorsement, the future is undoubtedly bright for VoIP. Its success will continue to attract greater investment and competition therefore, will continue to improve reliability and lower costs, all of which is great news for the consumer.
