At this point, saying “VoIP can save you money” is like saying “the sky is blue”; it’s such a well-established fact, that it hardly bears repeating. It is, however, worth examining how it saves money. Also, it’s worth looking at some of the other benefits VoIP provides, as well as its downsides.
Yes, VoIP has downsides — who would have thought? But let’s start with the upsides, shall we?
All you need to do to confirm the money-saving aspect of VoIP is take a look at the pricing of any pretty much any landline service provider and a VoIP service provider. On average, you’ll see that you can save half on your phone bill off the top. Then factor in the fact that businesses benefit even more from this — since most VoIP providers will gladly hand out discounts for multiple users — and it makes sense why VoIP market is growing stronger by the day.
Likewise, the feature set that VoIP offers in comparison to landlines is most beneficial for today’s businesses, whether large, small or somewhere in between. For example, setting up a hosted PBX (News - Alert) is much easier than having to deal with a physical PBX, while the many business-oriented features — such as call forwarding, anonymous call rejection, call parking and more — on offer from VoIP providers as part of the standard package are staggering.
However, for some companies, all of these positives aren’t worth giving up the reliability of faxing over a traditional landline. You read right: faxing over an IP connection is less reliable, at least over a connection that supports T.38.
Fortunately, AudioCodes’ (News - Alert) Fax ATA (analog telephony adapter) allows VoIP subscribers to sidestep the packet loss and latency issues inherent in T.38, instead using HTTPS to provide a true fax experience. In other words, organizations that are regulated by HIPAA and SOX can now enjoy the cost savings and other benefits of VoIP.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson