VoIP
VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) is the next generation of
Voice Telephony, which does not use the traditional way of making or
receiving calls from physical fixed lines in the office. Many companies
are offering this as a service now and it is a perfectly viable solution
in many ways. Today’s technology means that in reality you could not
tell the difference between a traditional “toll” call, and a VoIP call
IF the data connection between your handset or system is the correct
type of internet and configuration.
There are two commonly used methods of using VoIP:
- Via a Hosted or Managed service.
This
equipment you use are usually handsets that are leased or bought from
your supplier – but the PABX itself is usually a partition on the
supplier’s equipment somewhere at a different location.
- Via SIP Trunking.
This is used by people who
already have a fairly modern phone system that is “SIP enabled”. This
means that the phone system is able to worth with either physical lines,
or use a VoIP service. Sip Trunking is the name of the protocol
language used to carry this service over the internet. A SIP trunk is
effectively the equivalent to one normal line.
A user shouldn’t
necessarily be sold SIP Trunking to make cost savings (although they are
clearly cheaper to make and receive calls), because very often the user
might have to upgrade their system or install a new data connection to
run the service, thus negating the call savings. It should be sold more
on the features….. For example:
If you are moving premises out
of the area but it is essential that you keep your telephone number,
ordinarily, if you move to a new premise that is served by a different
exchange, you would have to accept a new number. VoIP services can take
over your old number and you could sit anywhere in the world and make
or receive calls from that number, so it doesn’t matter where you move
to, you can still keep your number.
If you are a business that is
cyclical or a large school for example, you can increase or decrease
the numbers of lines you have almost instantly, so in the schools
example, during term time they may have 10 lines coming into the school,
but out of term, that could be scaled back to 1 or 2 lines, thus saving
on line rental.
A company can have home workers “logged in” to their phone and act as though there working directly from the office. etc,
To
run VoIP effectively you need to have a service that either has QOS
(Quality of Service – the ability to prioritise certain tasks over
others – i.e. voice will have priority over browsing or sending /
receiving emails) on the data service, or more commonly a guaranteed
bandwidth. These broadbands are NOT the same grade as standard
broadband and you should expect to spend more for this service. It is
also advisable in the instance of not having QOS, to have a broadband
specifically for this service and browsing or other data requirements
can be carried out on another line.
Please contact a JabbaTalk advisor on 0844 880 4360 to discuss your options further.
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