So, you’re looking to trim a few expenses in the new year but want to maintain communication effectiveness in the office? Then VoIP is your best choice when it comes to keeping the bills low and taking advantage of a ton of useful features. From e-mail, to call forwarding, to VoIP on the go, it’s a pretty fantastic system for keeping communication channels up and running while maintaining a healthy bottom line.
Of course, shopping for VoIP from reputable business VoIP providers can be a bit daunting. Here’s a checklist of terms to reference so you know what you’re getting and how VoIP can work for your office.
- Bandwidth (News - Alert): Bandwidth is the volume of data that can be transmitted over a communications line in a fixed amount of time
- Find-me/Follow-me: A feature that allows calls to find you wherever you are, ringing multiple phones all at once
- Gateway (News - Alert): A network device that converts voice and fax calls in real time from the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to an IP network
- Internet Telephony (News - Alert) (AKA IP Telephony): Any means of transmitting the human voice over the Internet.
- Cable modem: The cable modem is a device that is used to connect a computer to the high speed coaxial cable run by cable TV companies to provide access to the Internet.
- Latency: Latency is the time that elapses between the initiation of a request for data and the start of the actual data transfer.
- Packet Switching: A way of sending and receiving data over alternate, multiple network channels.
- PBX (News - Alert): Private Branch Exchange – In telephony, a PBX system behaves as a customer's personal telephone exchange connecting internal telephone lines together and to the external public switched telephone network via trunk lines.
These are just a few terms you will come across in your search for a VoIP system for your office. A knowledgeable business VoIP provider will be able to explain all the ins and outs of VoIP in more detail.
Edited by Blaise McNamee