Virtual Office Resource

The rise of the mobile phone has changed many consumer habits over the years. One of the most notable trends has been the growing number of cellphone-only households.

According to a 2014 report compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 43 percent of U.S. adults lived in homes with only wireless phones.  Although such data does not necessarily spell doom and gloom for landline numbers at the moment, it’s clear that the whole concept of landline service seems antiquated to many.

It also brings into question why there is any need for area codes and phone numbers. A person with a Miami-based phone number and unlimited anywhere minutes could easily move to Seattle and continue using that number with little to no consequence. The whole concept of an area code has become all but meaningless.

Given those conditions, Voxbone’s recent announcement that Phone (News - Alert).com has been a near decade-long customer, buying the former’s direct inward dialing (DID) numbers by the truckload, might be little bit of a head-scratcher to the average person. It seems like the telecom equivalent of buying up Sony Walkman players.

Upon further review, it’s not like that at all. Acquiring so many DIDs, which are basically virtual local phone numbers, allows Phone.com (News - Alert) to provide international phone numbers free of tolls and long distance charges. Businesses can use that service to appear to have a local presence without actually having one. Customers calling for support or other information avoid long distance charges too.

But if landlines are gradually going away, why is this important? The answer lies in global conferencing. Attendees could call in from a number of different locations, leaving the businesses that set up the conferences with wildly unpredictable phone bills if calls are made through normal phone lines. Voxbone (News - Alert) eliminates this problem with a network made up of either its own networks or a network provided by a company it has established business relationships with.

So instead of being out of date, the DIDs that Voxbone offers allow businesses to fulfill the vision of many current communications technologies. Businesses can enjoy the benefits of collaboration between employees regardless of their location and are better equipped to serve customers globally. This includes the SMB market, which no longer requires the deep pockets of a large corporation to do business internationally.

More on these topics and word from Phone.com leaders and Voxbone specifically is happening this week during ITEXPO in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.  Voxbone is a Gold sponsor of the business technology event and can be found at booth #517 at the exhibit hall.  Phone.com will have presence in various panels during the show, perhaps the most notable session will happen today, Wed., Jan. 27 at 1:30pm called “Expanding Horizons - Innovative Uses for Cloud-Based Telephony” where the company’s CEO, Vice President and Systems Engineer will join other company leaders to discuss three real-world innovative use cases of cloud-based telephony.