For a small business a few legacy phone lines may still do the trick, but for most businesses the internet age has brought about many bigger, better solutions. Voice over Internet Protocol has changed the dynamics by streamlining both the efficiency and the economy of the communications infrastructure.
Whether you plan on using a hosted VoIP solution, an IP-PBX, or are planning on taking advantage of a Virtual PBX, the majority of phone systems now rely on the same network cabling as the rest of your IT infrastructure. The advantage to this is that not only has VoIP decreased the cost of infrastructure needed, but it has also reduced the cost of voice communications in a huge way. Outrageous phone bills are soon to be a thing of the past.
Voice over Internet Protocol differs from Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) in the way that it transmits information. POTS uses a single copper line which gets connected from user to user for the duration of the call. As long as that call is in progress, nobody else can use that stretch of wire. Essentially, if you are on a call from Vancouver to Toronto you are using a four thousand kilometre piece of copper for the duration of the call. No wonder long distance is so expensive.
VoIP takes a much more efficient approach when it comes to transferring data. Instead of tying up a line continuously, it only sends out information when there is information to be sent. If nobody is speaking then the line is not used. A VoIP phone will sample your voice as you speak many thousands of times per second, and then package these samples into packets and send them to their destination to be reassembled. The benefit to this is that it allows many packets from different calls to travel along the same lines, in turn reducing the cost of infrastructure for both you and your provider.
A good way to think of VoIP is as crowd funding for your phone expenses. Instead of having one user paying for one voice cable, you can have many users paying for that cable, all using it at the same time. Since most new voice applications are VoIP based, the network cabling they rely on must be designed and installed with much more care than traditional phone lines.
Obviously, not all businesses will be implementing the newest technology when it comes to voice communications. You may not need to. There is still a ton of analog infrastructure out there that does an excellent job, and it will be around for years to come. The technology isn’t nearly as delicate, and in many cases can be more reliable.
Teamwork in any organization is driven by strategic collaboration, which means that efficient communication is a must. At Datamax, we will help you to analyze your situation and figure out the ideal solution for both you and your business.
