subject: The Advantages Of Office Phone Systems [print this page] The world is changing very fast as well as technologies constantly emerge to help business organisations work faster and more efficiently. And if business wants to keep up with the latest changes, it is vitally important to rely on the latest achievements in the sphere of IT. Revealing this idea, it is important to pay attention to the changes that take place in organisations when they install office phone systems for the purpose of the improvement and facilitation of business communications.
Today a company has a couple of choices when it comes to choosing office phone systems for a particular situation. One can buy a traditional hardware-based system that may include lots of expensive equipment to purchase and maintain, or it is possible to use an Internet-based system that takes advantages of the latest technologies. Choosing VoIP over traditional landlines, the company reduces its initial costs as well as ongoing costs. The only thing that is necessary in this case is high-speed Internet. Office phone systems are a ready-to-go business solution as it lets the employees make free calls within the network while making substantial savings on all other calls.
There is an opinion that office phone systems are used mostly by large organisations as they constantly deal with a great quantity of partners, which involves long and frequent business communications. But it should not be forgotten that good office phone systems are also profitable for small businesses as it provides them with high quality communication services without wasting large sums of money on old-fashioned phones. So cost-effectiveness may be considered one of the most beneficial aspects of VoIP phone systems. While choosing the right plan to sign up to, a business venture should take into consideration a lot of things including the destination, duration and frequency of calls. So the company may get free national calls and international calls at the cheapest rates available. Moreover, using VoIP systems the organisation may receive other benefits that are not provided by ordinary telephone companies.
VoIP is very flexible as it gives the possibility to transmit more than one telephone call over a single broadband connection. In addition to this, office phone systems afford users the possibility to integrate their phones with other services available over the Internet, including video and audio conferencing, instant chats and data transfers during the conversation, etc. Since phone systems use the Internet to connect office phones with the service provider's equipment, such phones can be located anywhere but function as one system. It means that the employees can work in multiple offices located throughout the country or even from their homes and create a well organised business network.
When installing office phone systems businesses also get the usual package of services that includes system updates and complete technical support. Upgrades to the VoIP services are made remotely as soon as new features become available. It is not necessary to wait for an IT specialist to come and install new hardware. A company can receive the upgrades the moment they are launched. Many businessmen who value their time and money use VoIP systems since these are very flexible, cost-effective and progressive technologies.
Because of the bandwidth efficiency and low costs that VoIP technology can provide, businesses are gradually beginning to migrate from traditional copper-wire telephone systems to VoIP systems to reduce their monthly phone costs. VoIP solutions aimed at businesses have evolved into "unified communications" services that treat all communications--phone calls, faxes, voice mail, e-mail, Web conferences and more--as discrete units that can all be delivered via any means and to any handset, including cellphones. Two kinds of competitors are competing in this space: one set is focused on VoIP for medium to large enterprises, while another is targeting the small-to-medium business (SMB) market.
VoIP runs both voice and data communications over a single network, which can significantly reduce infrastructure costs.
The prices of extensions on VoIP are lower than for PBXs and key systems. VoIP switches run on commodity hardware, such as PCs or Linux systems. Rather than closed architectures, these devices rely on standard interfaces.
VoIP devices have simple, intuitive user interfaces, so users can often make simple system configuration changes. Dual-mode cellphones enable users to continue their conversations as they move between an outside cellular service and an internal Wi-Fi network, so that it is no longer necessary to carry both a desktop phone and a cellphone. Maintenance becomes simpler as there are fewer devices to oversee. Skype, which originally marketed itself as a service among friends, has begun to cater to businesses, providing free-of-charge connections between any users on the Skype network and connecting to and from ordinary PSTN telephones for a charge. In the United States the Social Security Administration (SSA) is converting its field offices of 63,000 workers from traditional phone installations to a VoIP infrastructure carried over its existing data network.
Operational cost
VoIP can be a benefit for reducing communication and infrastructure costs. Examples include:
-Routing phone calls over existing data networks to avoid the need for separate voice and data networks.
-Conference calling, IVR, call forwarding, automatic redial, and caller ID features that traditional telecommunication companies (telcos) normally charge extra for, are available free of charge from open source VoIP implementations.[citation needed]
Flexibility
vVoIP can facilitate tasks and provide services that may be more difficult to implement using the PSTN. Examples include:
-The ability to transmit more than one telephone call over a single broadband connection.
-Secure calls using standardized protocols (such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol). Most of the difficulties of creating a secure telephone connection over traditional phone lines, such as digitizing and digital transmission, are already in place with VoIP. It is only necessary to encrypt and authenticate the existing data stream.
-Location independence. Only a sufficiently fast and stable Internet connection is needed to get a connection from anywhere to a VoIP provider.
-Integration with other services available over the Internet, including video conversation, message or data file exchange during the conversation, audio conferencing, managing address books, and passing information about whether other people are available to interested parties.
