So you’ve heard about VoIP, but what actually is it?

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol.

Essentially it is a way of carrying calls in and out of your business. The big difference being that calls are carried over your broadband connection, rather than traditional telephone ‘lines’.

In the current digital age, you can watch videos and listen to music over the internet perfectly. A lot of companies are now offering voice and video chat too, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, so making actual phone calls is just the next evolution.

In terms of offerings, VoIP comes in two flavours:

  1. Hosted VoIP: The only equipment required for this is the phone handset (or soft client if you want a virtual phone on your laptop or PC. As for the phone system, this is hosted in ‘the cloud’.
  2. SIP Trunking: This service provides you with ‘trunks’ into your office, to which you can connect a VoIP-enabled phone system. It works much the same as Hosted VoIP, but the main difference is that your phone system (PBX) is kept in-house, rather than in the cloud.  (Trunks are like lines over your internet; the more you have, the more calls you can make at any one time.)

With huge cost savings over regular telephone lines (such as single BT lines or ISDN circuits) and flexibility to potentially use your system from anywhere, VoIP is as scalable and adaptable as your business is.

A word of caution though…

  • You must ensure your internet line is capable of supporting a VoIP based system. An inadequate internet line will lead to poor voice quality and a reduced number of potential concurrent calls.
  • Not all packages are created equal. This means that there is no ‘standard’ set of features provided when looking at potential offers.

If VoIP is of interest to you, your business or school, get in contact with us today!

We can help guide you through the minefield of VoIP and internet lines.