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How Does Hosted VoIP Work

What is Hosted VoIP?

Communication systems have always, and will always, be crucial components of any successful business, so it’s important that organisations keep in touch with any related tech developments. And, when it comes to phone technology, hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has steadily been gaining traction in the business market for the last decade. However, many businesses are still making do with traditional phone technology and aren’t aware of what hosted VoIP can offer them.

How Does VoIP Work For Business

The first piece of internet phone software was launched in 1995 and allowed early users to transmit voice signals over the internet to anywhere in the world. And, this remains the very foundation of VoIP nearly 25 years later. Naturally, advances in technology have ensured that the quality of these voice signals have increased almost exponentially and, more importantly, the connections that carry them are significantly more stable and provide seamless communication.

Hosted VoIP takes the standard concept of VoIP and packages it as a service provided to businesses. Part of the appeal of hosted VoIP is that all the hardware and the private branch exchange (a telephone switching system) doesn’t need to be housed on site. Instead, this is all housed at a remote location that businesses can connect to. This provides organisations with a fantastic phone system, but without the costly investment of purchasing said equipment and maintaining it on site.

Transitioning to Cloud-based (VoIP) Phones

Traditional landlines are due to be made redundant by the mid-2020s, so it’s vital that your business begins to consider making the transition to cloud-based office phones sooner rather than later. After all, we know that communication is critical in business, so remaining competitive in this area is highly important. Such a major change in technology, though, is surely difficult to integrate, right? Well, actually, it’s a lot simpler that you might imagine.

Planning is, as ever, an essential step, but if it’s done correctly then you can rest assured that your transition should an easy one. One of the major benefits of hosted VoIP is that all the hardware is based off site and this means you can gradually introduce it to your office alongside your existing telephone system. This allows you to keep your communication channels open to reduce the impact of any teething issues. Number porting, of course, is one of the most time consuming aspects of transitioning to a new phone system, so it’s a good idea to make this a priority from the start.

How Much Does VoIP Cost?

As with most hosted services, there are a considerable number of providers vying for your business and they will all offer products with varying features and price ranges. For the most basic package, you should be looking to pay around £20 per month for a service which allows you to work with a limited amount of minutes to use each month. However, for a business that, for example, contains considerably more staff and requires more talk time, it makes sense to go for all-inclusive packages which start at around £50 per month.

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VoIP Advantages and Disadvantages

in IT Tips

How New Telecom Technology is Helping Business

As a business, a lot of work goes into setting up your office environment to be efficient and effective. Traditionally this is very capital intensive, and anything you can do to lower your time and money investment is extremely helpful.

Thankfully, this is where VoIP (voice over internet protocol) systems become useful. Using business telecoms systems such as these have a myriad of benefits.

What Are The Benefits Of VoIP ?

Enhanced Sound Quality: Many potential users become worried about the quality of sound over IP telephony, but there is nothing to worry about. In fact, now that the industry has integrated high-definition codecs, the sound quality is usually better than landline networks.
Reduced Costs: companies are able to save on both the fixed costs and variable costs when they switch their telecoms services to VoIP. Limited upfront hardware is required, which eliminates the capital requirements to establish an office. Additionally, all you need is a broadband internet connection, which takes a whole line item off of your monthly operating statement. No more company-wide phone bill, and you are able to call internationally much more easily as well.
Faster Setup Time: Normally, when a company is getting their office set up, there is a lot of work that must be done to bring their systems online. Special wiring and equipment needs to be installed, and this takes up valuable time.
With VoIP, you don’t even have to deal with phone jacks. You have no cumbersome wires getting in the way, and it is easy to scale the network up by adding more nodes. Often we see companies make the assumption that the operation of a VoIP system requires a lot of technical know-how, but this is not the case at all. It is simple to set up and use for everyone.
Enhanced Convenience: The above benefits of VoIP are all mostly relevant to the company, but there are also important benefits for end users. The ability to use a VoIP telephone means that employees can work from home or on the go, and this added convenience makes their jobs much more enjoyable. If your company already operates out of multiple locations, then this will make it much easier to facilitate inter-office communications. It used to be just the big corporations that had special office communications systems, but now anyone can use them.

VoIP Integrates With Other Business Applications

Between the enhanced sound quality and reduced costs, having your business telecoms centred around VoIP telephone services will provide a huge net benefit to your company. Not only do VoIP systems add cost and user befits, they can also integrate seamlessly with other application, making the transition to new telecoms technology rewarding and time saving. Small and medium-sized companies arguably benefit the most, since they were the ones who used to struggle with the capital aspect of setting up their first office. But ultimately every company can improve their operations by using IP telephony, and maximising the value of their telecoms investments.

Want To Know How the benefits of Voip Technology Could Help Your Business, Just Give Us A Call: 0844 770 0199

VoIP Phone System Advantages

in IT Tips

VoIP Phone Advantages

In an increasingly competitive world, it is important that your business stays up to date with the latest technologies to empower your employees and surpass your competition.

Due to the global nature of many businesses today, communication has become a vital part of how we work, but it doesn’t come without costs and challenges.

VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol

Has become a popular way to reduce the cost of telephony and improve communication between teams around the world.

VoIP works by converting voice calls into data, and transmitting them over the internet, as opposed to the standard telephone networks.

In practical terms, you have two options for implementing VoIP for your business:

Use your PC as a phone – Simply by installing VoIP software on your PC, and using a headset and a microphone, you can start to use your PC like a phone
Have a dedicated VoIP phone – Alternatively you can have dedicated VoIP phone hardware, which looks and feels like a normal fixed line phone, but actually connects to the internet via your PC.

People traditionally associate VoIP technology with cheap calls, but it also allows you to do a whole host of things that you wouldn’t be able to do with a traditional phone line.

Benefits of VoIP systems

The nature of VoIP means that it has many benefits over traditional telephony services, including:

Portable – As your phone connects over the internet, you can use the same number wherever you have internet access
Multimedia – For no extra cost, you can make video calls, send instant messages or Fax using VoIP technology.
Integration with applications – VoIP phones can be connected to your computer systems and integrated with any number of other applications. Linking to CRM systems can be effective for logging calls and enabling “click to call” functionality.
Cost – Making VoIP to VoIP calls is free, and even calls to other landlines are typically much cheaper. For international call, you will connect via the internet to a local hub in that country, and then only pay local call rates to connect to the fixed telephone line.

What can VoIP Phone systems affect your business?

VoIP communications platforms can truly revolutionise the way businesses work, It can be particularly good for:

- - Mobile workforce – The portability of VoIP means that you can effectively take your number with you when you are travelling, allowing you to make and receive calls from the same number as if you were at home.
  - Multinational organisations – Global organisations with offices spread out across the world can dramatically reduce the cost of these various office communicating by making sure they are call set up with VoIP telephony. In this scenario calls would be free as they are VoIP to VoIP
  - Collaborative teams –Collaborative teams spread out over a few different locations can make use of the different forms of communication that come as standard with many VoIP platforms, for example video calls, or the ease of sharing files via instant messenger.

Hosted VoIP

Any business or team that has high call volumes benefits from VoIP and its capability to easily integrate with other applications. Hosted VoIP systems easily allow you to monitor statistics like call volumes, lengths etc. so you can analyse the performance of your teams. You can also include features like automatically logging calls on client records.

Installing a VoIP telephony system could revolutionise the way your business communicates, while reducing your costs at the same time. If you’re thinking about an upgrade, make sure you bear VoIP in mind.

If you would like to know more about VoIP for business just contact us or give us a call on 0844 770 0199 for a no obligation review of your current arrangements