Using VOIP Internally Allows You Several Benefits

Business, Communication.

Do not buy a new business phone system without voip capability - some of the most honest and sincere advice a telecommunications professional can give a business when evaluating telephone system technology options for their business is to make sure they buy a telephone system with voip capability. It would be best to start with a brief description of the different types of VOIP systems available. It is estimated that over 90% of new business telephone systems shipped in 2010 will have VOIP capability, and we will evaluate the reasons for that trend, as well as explain why owning a phone system with VOIP capability has become a necessity even if you don' t use the features at the time of purchase.

Not all flavors are the same, and each carries their own benefits. - there are two main areas of voip to cover: voip telephone service: defined as the ability of your telephone system to interface with a telephone service provider via your data connection to make your calls over the public internet. VOIP tends to mean many things to many people, so let' s make sure we are speaking the same language before starting. SIP trunking is the most popular method of interface on the commercial level, but we will not be covering this transport method in this article. Each manufacturer has to go through a rigorous interoperability testing procedure in order verify Quality of Service with each carrier. VOIP telephone service promises some more competitive pricing mainly due to increased T1 usage due to compression, but few phone systems interface with VOIP providers at this time.

Very few systems have completed this process with the few carriers that are out there. - voip capable telephone systems: when we speak of a voip capable telephone system, we are directly referring to the ability of the phone system to use the voice over internet protocol language to carry your telephone conversations internally or between locations. Some think of this as" free long distance" or" flat rate long distance" that is far more competitive than standard business offerings. We are not speaking of the ability to make your phones calls over a VOIP Telephone Service Provider as detailed above. Shared wiring infrastructure: VOIP conversations require typically between 16k - 64k depending upon compression levels, so the data wiring infrastructure of a typical office running CAT5e cabling can share the same 100M cabling for both voice and data. Using VOIP internally allows you several benefits. Voice is prioritized over data to protect call quality, and dozens of phone calls could be made simultaneously without noticeably affecting data speeds.

Ease of Moves, and Changes, Adds: Changes in configuration that typically required a technician site visit in the past are now possible to do internally quite easily. - using a shared wire infrastructure saves on wiring installation costs as well as wiring maintenance costs. Although many manufacturers will argue that they can now perform this functionality via TDM technology and web interfaces, it was VOIP systems that brought this ability to the forefront with industry changing ease. Reduction in MAC charges have made the VOIP systems highly desirable simply because they cost less to maintain. For any company that knows their phone system technicians on a first name basis, the ability to administer your own system will dramatically alter your total cost of ownership. System administration is now something that can be internally for over 95% of programming changes. This gives clients a more transparent experience when dealing with employees from multiple offices, and it allows businesses to offer a more customer friendly environment.

The ability to connect offices: With VOIP capability, you can now connect offices through managed data connections to utilize your phones systems more cost effectively than ever. - toll bypass is an added benefit and eliminates costly toll charges between locations when using voip. The ability to have a single receptionist to handle calls for multiple locations can often pay for a system within a year. The business case for more cost effective use of manpower has been startling. Allowing employees who were previously tied up with answering calls to move to income generating activities can prove to be a financial coup depending on company size and configuration. They may be sales, or operations related, support, but the common challenge for all companies has been the effective management of those employees. The ability to manage remote employees: A major trend nationwide has been to hire remote employees for various tasks.

With a VOIP system and a managed data connection, you can literally hook up your remote employee to your phone system with a VOIP telephone. - you can see real time availability on the phone, number of calls made, talk time, calls received, and all other relevant information with the right software applications. Doing so gives the employer access to all of the same management tools they enjoy internally with other employees. Ease of database integration: For companies that use CRM packages with TAPI or IMAP interfaces, having a VOIP system can prove to be an incredible production tool. Screen pops allow users to see who is calling before choosing to answer calls, send to voice mail, or transfer appropriately. Incoming calls can be routed to the desired party based upon programming and assignment in the CRM. Desktop call control also gives users the ability to dial numbers with a click of a mouse right out of their contacts.

Since manpower is typically the highest cost for any business, having tools that help make employees more efficient to the tune of several minutes a day can provide incredible paybacks. - users can use all of the features and functionality of their desk phone from their pc screen. IP Softphones: IP Softphones have proven to be an incredible tool for the right application. Have employees who travel frequently and need to connect to the phone system from hotels? Make a lot of calls overseas? Need to connect from tradeshows real time with line appearance?

Many new applications are coming. - with a software driven softphone, you can have complete phone system functionality from your laptop or pda device with a usb headset for a phone! There are numerous other benefits that VOIP systems provide over their more traditional TDM counterparts, but we limited mention to the main ones above. For those companies that have only one location, telecom professionals will typically recommend a hybrid system. While TDM phone system options still remain a viable solution that is slightly more cost effective up front, we find that the projected TCO or Total Cost of Ownership is often less with a VOIP system due to the available feature set and production efficiency tools. A hybrid system is a business telephone system based upon cost effective TDM technology, but that has the ability to add VOIP capability via a media gateway card. Perhaps one of the last things companies consider when making a phone system purchase, but one they should probably consider a little more, is the phone system resell value.

Although VOIP may not be a service priority to a company today, it is essential to make sure you have future capability should you choose to implement it at a later date. - since telecom professionals regularly assist their clients in the process of liquidating their old equipment, they are very much aware of what old equipment is worth. Systems without VOIP capability have next to no value. As with most aging electronics, there is minimal value that can be expected after five years, but a startling trend has been showing up in the past year. When companies attempt to liquidate systems as little as five years old, they often find they have no takers since the systems have no VOIP ability. There will always be some demand for used inventory for the major manufacturers such as NEC, Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, but all others, and Toshiba look to be extremely weak investments at this time. The dramatic shift to VOIP has literally wiped out generations of used telephony product value, as there is literally no demand.

Although resale value should not be a major consideration when choosing which system to purchase, business owners should be aware that choosing a system with VOIP capability from a major manufacturer will virtually guarantee a reasonable resale value down the road. - as always, we suggest you speak to your local telecom professional for assistance in choosing which system is right for you. .