Canadian Businesses Discover the Benefits of VoIP

VoIP for business phone systems is growing in adoption just about everywhere, but especially in Canada.

The VoIP market is expected to reach $80 billion worldwide by 2017, according to a recent VoIP Market Analysis. Canadian businesses are especially active, with the country being one of the top 10 countries for VoIP adoption and sporting more than five million active subscribers already.

The reasons that Canadian businesses are taking a shining to VoIP are several, including ease of use, reduced cost, better support for mobile workers, and added features above and beyond those offered by traditional business phone systems.

Most VoIP services are now based in the cloud, making setup and maintenance extremely easy. With a cloud service, there’s no need for a telephone closet or telephony hardware to get started. Upgrades and maintenance also are handled by the VoIP provider, making business VoIP a turnkey solution.

Cost, of course, also is much better for VoIP systems because there’s no need for dedicated phone lines thanks to the fact that VoIP leverages the Internet for connectivity. Instead of each call requiring a dedicated line, VoIP instead piggypacks on the Internet. That reduction in physical resources translates into savings for customers, evidenced by the unlimited domestic calling offered by most business VoIP plans.

Mobility is improved, too, because VoIP calls can be taken from an office phone, a smartphone, or even transferred to a home office. Calls follow workers instead of restricting access to a single location with a physical phone. This makes VoIP calling an improvement over even cell phones, which suffer from signal and battery issues that can disrupt the ability to take calls.

Canadian businesses and those the world over also are finding that the features that come with VoIP are compelling, too.

A quick look at one popular VoIP provider, Nextiva, highlights this feature advantage.

Nextiva business VoIP users can get voicemail to email functionality, call recording, team presence functionality, high definition hold music, silent call barging, unlimited virtual faxing, and many other features.

When businesses take a look at what VoIP has to offer, the question isn’t whether VoIP makes sense; the question is why they haven’t adopted it sooner.

Edited by Maurice Nagle