Experts Discuss How to Best Use a Business VoIP System

Many companies have already either decided to implement a next-generation business VoIP system or have begun thinking about transitioning to one. For those that haven’t adopted this solution yet, it’s a big decision for a company to decide if it wants to keep the VoIP network separate from the data network or converge the two into one cohesive system. While there are numerous benefits to having one large system handling all of the business operations, there are still good reasons to keep things separate.

Ershad Islam, product specialist at Telappliant, said that in order for companies to achieve its maximum efficiency and productivity from a VoIP setup it might want to first focus on the company’s service it signs up with.

“If you’ve got something like basic BT broadband and you’re trying to run ten extensions or users off it, then you will be complaining that the VoIP doesn’t work and the call quality is terrible, because you just don’t have the connectivity,” said Islam. The expert suggests keeping the data and voice traffic on different broadband providers to help increase reliability.

E-Tutes, a major technology tutorial website, agreed saying that most companies opt to have separate networks because of the numerous benefits.

“Many organizations operate multiple separate networks, because when they were created that was the best way to provide various types of communication services that were both affordable and at a level of quality acceptable to the user community,” according to E-Tutes.

Another reason for separation is to increase network safety. VoIP is vulnerable to many of the same attacks, intrusions, and other security threats as data networks. If you have both networks combined, one attack could bring down the entire system. It would be quite difficult to run a company if users are unable to get into the system to check their -emails and company messages or work in the content management systems if they are denied access due to a virus or a denial-of-service attack.

Bandwidth considerations and regulatory compliancy issues also should be closely analyzed when determining how to setup the VoIP network.

 Although there are many decisions that need to be carefully made when beginning to leverage a business VoIP system, Islam said the major concern for businesses should be quality -- adding that ensuring the quality is high might be the only way for a company to offer the ultimate communication solution.

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Edited by Jamie Epstein