Posted by Daryl Rinaldi on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 10:59 AM
As you may know VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. This means your phone calls are turned into digital packets of information and sent over the internet rather than traditional phone lines. Why should you consider VoIP?
1. Cost! VoIP phone systems are significantly less expensive than a traditional analog PBX. You can save anywhere from 30-60% on the equipment purchase.
2. Cost! VoIP phone calls are significantly cheaper than analog phone service. We have seen a small office go from a $300/month phone bill to a $60/month bill.
3. Capabilities. While cost often initially grabs people's attention they soon get excited about the capabilities of their new phone system. For example the Aastra Response Point system has:
- An auto-attendant with built-in voice recognition. Callers can simply speak the name of the person they are trying to reach.
- Voice recognition on the phones means that you no longer have to remember a sequence of key strokes to peform functions such as accessing voicemail or transferring a call. You can simply press the big blue Response point Button and say "voicemail" or "transfer to Dave". This also means that a typical end user can manage and administer the phone system without help from a phone or IT technician.
- Integration with Outlook. You can import your Outlook contacts into the phone and they are automatically voice-enabled. So you can just pick up the phone and say "call Daryl Rinaldi". You can even give a contact a nickname like "my wife", or "my bookie."
- Voicemail-email integration. You can get your voicemails automatically emailed to you as an audio file attachment. So you don't have to call into your voicemail anymore when you are out of the office.
These are just some of the useful features of a VoIP system. One other advantage is that often your IT support company or your IT department can install and maintain the system so you don't need to engage with another vendor.
VoIP service is highly dependent on the bandwidth and quality of your network and internet connection. If you don't have proper bandwidth or if you don't have your internet connection properly configured you will experience call problems. You can use DSL or cable modem service as long as the speeds are high enough and the service is consistent enough. While your internet surfing can stand the occasional delay or slow down without affecting you too much, a VoIP phone call has much less tolerance for delay or quality problems on the line.
You definitely should install a commercial-grade firewall that has VoIP-specific QoS (Quality of Service) features. For example a Sonicwall TZ-100 is a basic unit that costs about $300. And you will need an IT company or department who knows how to configure the firewall to prioritize VoIP traffic. This means the firewall prioritizes VoIP traffic other types of internet traffic such as web-browsing.
If you have a T1 line you can reserve a certain amount of bandwidth just for VoIP calls.
GizmoFish's customers love their VoIP phone systems (and they especially love those low monthly phone bills) and we are obviously fans of the system ourselves. Of course a VoIP system must be setup correctly and you must have the proper network in place or you will experience problems. But if correctly configured with a proper network and bandwidth you'll be very happy with your system.
Oh, one more thing. I was talking about an onsite VoIP system in this blog post. You can also buy a hosted system where you purchase the phones but the 'brain" of the system resides on the internet. A hosted system has pros and cons. The big benefit is your upfront equipment purchase cost may be less and you don't have another piece of equipment to maintain. Also with some of these systems you can take your VoIP phone out of the office and plug it in to another internet connection (at home for example) and make and receive calls just like you were in the office. There are a few caveats to that -- if your home network and internet connection is not up-to-snuff then the phone may not work very well. But if the internet connection is good enough this is a very nice benefit of a hosted VoIP solution. The downside is of course cost. You pay more per month and you pay forever - you never own the system like you do with an on-premise solution.
Please contact GizmoFish if you have any questions or would like a quote for a VoIP system for your business. Call us at 866-MY-GIZMO (866-694-4966) or locally at 617-965-6800. Or just click on the button below to have someone contact you.
