Moving to VoIP, what should you know?

Almost every element of everyday life has been influenced by technology. For a company, Landlines are becoming an example of technology yesterday. It would be foolish if you don’t move to VoIP. Old-fashioned contracts and the upfront cost of connecting landlines are typically linked. This means true value for money is tough to unlock. Companies today want speed, flexibility, and scalability. Moving to VoIP is one of those for unified and seamless communication. Switching to VoIP can always be cost-effective and seamless.

Internet Voice Protocol (VoIP) is another alternative for companies seeking to overcome the old telecommunication constraints. It allows them to use the power of the internet and remove obsolete infrastructure constraints.

Increased use of VoIP is being made possible by companies throughout the industry. By 2021, the world VoIP market is set to value $140 billion. What does it mean that so many companies are now switching to VoIP instead of a fixed telephone system?

What is VoIP?

Before moving to VoIP, the first question that comes to mind is, “What is VoIP? Why should I move to VoIP?”. VoIP means Voice over IP, a telephone conversation via the internet instead of the traditional PSTN and ISDN phone network in a number of forms over the century. VoIP stands for Voice over IP (Internet Protocol). Thus, the advantages of VoIP from cost to calling quality, availability, flexibility, all are immense, although these older technologies have been successful worldwide in this period. Both companies and consumers adopted VoIP so rapidly that this year BT, the leading provider of these telecommunication services, has stopped making any additional orders for the ISDN lines.

• You can know details about VoIP here.

What is SIP?

SIP is the communication technology used by VoIP to link you to the person at the other end of the mobile, across sophisticated networking and Internet routing. SIP stands for a session initiation protocol. A SIP trunk is necessary in order to interact with telephone systems outside your organization and you buy SIP lines to allow a firm to make numerous concurrent calls if needed. When moving to VoIP services at least two are suggested, but additional can be acquired as necessary to provide sufficient availability for the system.

Do I need a certain line(like a dedicated line) or a company to provide acceptable call quality after switching to VoIP?

Although you need dependable internet connectivity to work well after moving to VoIP system, avoiding call drops throughout the discussion, it isn’t as vital for your line to speed up as you believe. The great majority of commercial areas have broadband (bandwidth) connection speeds of at least 10 Mbps and uploads of 3 Mbps. A more realistic value is the rate of upload and download of 50Mbps. The bandwidth needed for every single simulcast, which is equivalent to 0.1Mbps, for a VoIP Call to have an acceptable quality level is 100Kbps. Obviously, the majority of Online Traffic within and outside a firm is related to web access, email, and document transfer, but because VoIP connections are essential in most working situations, sufficient bandwidth allocations are not necessary. In addition, most corporate routers and firewalls offer QoS, allowing administrators such as ourselves to supply a dedicated bandwidth for VoIP traffic, to ensure that after moving to VoIP, the quality of the call is not compromised even in times of high bandwidth consumption.

Do I have to buy equipment to get calls when moving to VoIP?

Three primary ways to make and get calls via your VoIP system and discover the best solution to meet your demands are mainly the way every user uses the system. A software-based receiver known as a softphone, which requires a headset attached to your PC solely to take full benefit of its capability, is the most practical and affordable means of making and taking calls. It comprises of a program, registered for its own unique numerical user extension on each individual user machine. The user ID is logged into the software client using VoIP system credentials during our first setup. The interface provides users with access to the whole spectrum of functions from the transmission of call data to call group statistics. A completely working PC telephone.

The most typical method to set up your VoIP system is to provide consumers a real device known as PBX, that can make calls exactly as they always have. You may customize the interface functionality to give rapid dialing, calling transfers, transfers, and many other features after you move to VoIP. Users have still the choice to utilize the previously described software client, and both may be synchronized with a consistent experience to allow for calls from both devices even after switching to VoIP.

Finally, there are Android and iOS mobile apps. Once connected to your account, the application provides the users with complete calls capable of receiving telephones or software customers, but with the ability to make 4G or WiFi calls from anywhere. There is also a quite wide range of IP Phones those look like phones used with landlines.

What are the alternatives for call forwarding?

As with many older telephone systems, all VoIP telephone systems provide the option of creating a call forwarding from your office to a certain number. VoIP solutions like 3CX are not only the capability of our chosen VoIP service but also allow every single user to generate forwarding on their own extensions, isolating the transfer just for their extension and not the whole organization.

How long should I expect the contract if I move to VoIP? It cost me a modest sum for the current ISDN 5 years.

Contrary to the traditional ISDN-style telephone lines used by companies for decades which are both very expensive and also include long-term contracts, VoIP systems and 3CX are included in this contract and only require 12 months’ commitment.

How can I know how much per month I’m going to pay after moving to VoIP? And there are installation costs to move to VoIP?

An estimate with all the information you need to separate between monthly cost and one-time installation will be sent before the signing of a single contract. Monthly expenses are divided into the number of SIP lines you need, each user license, and continuous support from our support desk. Extra capabilities such as an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) option, call reports, e-mail voice mail, and the Out of Hours notification to name but a few can be implemented if desired.

I truly don’t want to give up my long-time phone number, may I carry it with me after switching to VoIP?

Most VoIP Service Providers provide their VoIP systems to clients with SIP. To transfer an existing number to VoIP, your current supplier needs to receive a one-off request for a number port. And offer either a temporary number or forwarding, so that you don’t loose any calls. Once the number has been completed, we will be given access to your new VoIP telephony system.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) before moving to VoIP

• Can I keep my existing number after moving to VoIP?
  Answer: Yes. Most VoIP providers can transfer your numbers to their services to prevent you from changing anything or from losing any calls
• Do I have to pay for my calls?
  Answer: Some VoIP providers provide free calls to particular number types (including unlimited free calls)
• Can I make choices menu 1 for Accounts, Sales 2, etc.?
  Answer: Yes. That is known as IVR. And most of the VoIP provides provide that option
• Can I get calls on my mobile phone when out of my office and someone calls my office number?
  Answer: Yes. With call forwarding or parallel ringing, you can get your calls diverted to your mobile phone or ring your office phone and mobile phone at the same time.
• Can I have different messages when our office is closed after switching to VoIP?
  Answer: Yes. You can set office hours, any call-in out of office hours will get different messages.
• How long is the system going to take to get started?
  Answer: It depends on the number of people that you have to install, but usually between 2 hours and 2 weeks from your time to install.
• Can I do Call forwarding and Call Transfer after switching to VoIP?
  Answer: Yes. Most of the VoIP services offer Call Forwarding and Call Transfer. That is one of the benefits of moving to VoIP
• Can I use my laptop for calls rather than a phone?
  Answer: Yes. With Softphone (Application/Software based phones) you can use phones on Computers/Laptops
• What is a SIP? And how many do I need to move to VoIP?
  Answer: A SIP on your phone system is essentially an incoming line, you can insert more SIP lines whenever you want. We would propose 10 incoming SIP lines to a company with 50 workers, for example. This enables you to make either 10 incoming calls, 10 outgoing calls, or a mix of both.
• How fast internet do I need?
  Answer: It depends on how many users are there, which codec you are using, etc. You’ll need at least 15Mb download and 4Mb upload for a 20 person system.