Hosted voice-over-IP (VoIP) calling is one of the hottest trends in business communications, and it is easy to see why. From cost savings to flexibility, the reasons enterprises should migrate from a traditional PSTN telephone system to a hosted VoIP solution are many. Here are the top five.
Reduced cost. Outbound calling is either a low flat fee or a per-minute rate much smaller than those offered by PSTN systems, and because of the IP nature of VoIP, there is no difference between a local call and one that reaches the other side of the country. International call prices are reduced, too, and with a hosted solution there’s no need to buy or maintain telephone hardware. Line rental charges also are smaller with VoIP, and there’s the freedom to choose among many suppliers—which, as we all know about competition, drives down cost.
Flexibility. For many businesses, staff levels vary cyclically, usually based on economic conditions. With PSTN phone systems, it is relatively hard to add and remove lines as needed. With hosted VoIP, however, adding and taking away lines is as easy as a click of a button. Since the hardware is in the cloud, enterprises can use only what they need at the moment, adjusting in either direction at a moment’s notice without penalty or hassle.
Scalability. Traditional PBX (News - Alert) systems don’t scale very well. There are lines to add, hardware to buy, and infrastructure to consider. But with hosted VoIP, a business can grow at any pace without outgrowing their phone system. Whether a small business or a large enterprise, the same hosted VoIP phone system can be used in most cases. With more employees, just sign up for more lines!
Efficiency. We all know the efficiency benefits of centralization—we just have to look at the speed with which China can adjust policy. This same efficiency comes with hosted VoIP, where businesses can benefit from the scale that comes from outsourcing their phone service to a provider who makes telephony its business. Instead of managing its own phone infrastructure, an enterprise can offload this chore to their hosted VoIP provider.
Call Quality. Voice packets and data packets act differently, and the best quality comes when data packets talk to data packets. As more businesses switch to VoIP, enterprises will find that their call quality rises as the world moves to VoIP. Also, VoIP handles long distances and bad network connections better than the PSTN network, and with IP-based calling there is the potential for high-definition calling.
Edited by Blaise McNamee