VoIP Solutions: Cutting Down The Costs For Your Business

VoIP solutions, now granted to virtually everyone, were seized by business persons all over the world, as the ideal way to cut down the costs on their phone bills. Even if, at first, there was a controversy regarding the use of VoIP, those times passed and now it is not unusual to use it in order to make important savings.

The popularity of VoIP can also be explained through the incredible offers the providers make for their customers. Many features that you would have to pay if you subscribe to a telephone network, are free with VoIP.

• If you live in the United States, or in the United Kingdom, you can get telephone numbers for free.
• Forwarding calls to a specified number is a service that VoIP providers give for free. So, if you are not in your office and you expect a certain call, you can receive it even if the call is made to the office phone.
• Telecommuting is also possible with VoIP phones. You do not have to keep your employees in your office, as they can work from anywhere.
• Services like caller ID, conferencing or automatic redial, are included, free of charge, into the standard VoIP package.

At first, the opponents of VoIP criticized the quality of the signals received over the Internet. When the networks were in their first years of life, some traffic congestions could appear, making the signals distorted or even losing them. This problem appeared especially when a long distance call was placed. But the quality of the networks improved a lot over the last few years and now it is considered to be higher than for regular phones.

There are certain drawbacks, so you must know them before deciding for VoIP solutions. It is not that easy to send a fax when you use VoIP. Things are changing in this field, as well. Specialists are working now on T.38 protocol, which will make possible transmitting faxes over the Internet. For now, if you want to send a fax, there are other solutions, like sending faxes through e-mail, in an attachment, or treating the fax as a message switching mechanism. This means that the transmission is not performed in real time, but stocked in the system and then printed out later.

What else prevents VoIP solutions for being present in every home and office? We will talk about them right now.

Mobility can be an issue when you want to communicate from anywhere, to anyone. Mobile phone technology solved this problem, by giving people the possibility to have a portable device and to use it wherever they like. VoIP solutions, however, have still a road ahead regarding this matter, as wireless technology is not so much developed as is the mobile technology. You can make calls using your VoIP if you are in a wi-fi hotspot, but there are still too few such spots around the world so it would make it count.

The first step in correcting this problem is to create a hybrid phone. This will serve as a standard mobile phone and it can work as a VoIP device, when the user is in a wi-fi hotspot. This is a good solution, so far, because you can talk on the phone for free, when you are in an area with wireless signal.

Emergency phone calls are part of our lives. When you have a problem or an emergency, we call 911, it is a common fact. But VoIP could not work too well with this service because of the inconsistency in the providers’ offers regarding this number. The problem was regulated, in the end, when the Federal Communications Commission, decided to make all the providers deliver this service, in their standard package.

A certain drawback is serious, whatsoever. When the electricity goes down, you cannot use your VoIP device. So VoIP solutions have still to overcome this problem. Power outages do not affect local telephones and they are more useful than VoIP in such situations. The thing is that Internet cannot work without electricity and VoIP cannot work without Internet. Also, during power outages, cellular phones can be used without a problem. In order to solve this, some VoIP companies now include power backups for their devices.

These drawbacks are real, but they can be overcome, and this is the most important thing. If you want to cut down the costs on your business expenses, VoIP solutions can really make it happen.