How Does Business VoIP Work?

As you’ve probably heard, there’s a growing trend of people “cutting the cable” with their TV services and relying on online offerings instead. This trend has a parallel in the growing popularity of Business VoIP. As VoIP technology has grown and developed, alongside the proliferation of affordable high speed Internet, more and more business are cutting the cord of traditional phone services and landlines. At first glance, VoIP may seem perhaps a bit farfetched. A flexible phone service that comes packed with features and is somehow cheaper than existing services? It sounds too good to be true, but everything you’ve heard is the truth.

So how does Business VoIP work? Well, simply enough, you use compatible equipment to route your calls over the Internet instead of the standard telephone network. There are hosted services available where you can get plug-and-play phones that connect to an offsite service managed by a provider. This solution is low cost and saves you the trouble of dealing with hardware. You also have the option of maintaining an onsite system, though the upfront cost of purchasing hardware is cost prohibitive for many businesses. Either way, you typically have a PBX which connects to the Internet and makes IP-based calls at a fraction of the cost of regular calls.

Since most companies already have data networks installed, VoIP could cost almost nothing to deploy. It all comes down to available bandwidth. While voice and data can share one network, there needs to be enough bandwidth to ensure clear call quality and allow other applications to run. Business VoIP requires broadband Internet and varying amounts of bandwidth depending on the number of simultaneous users. Voice traffic is tagged to prioritize it, which helps keep call quality high, but it may also be a good idea to limit the number of simultaneous calls possible in order to prevent quality from dropping due to an overloaded network.

Many providers offer a router configured with Quality of Service settings to maximize voice quality. Different codecs can make a difference too. G711 is perhaps the most popular as it balances call quality with bandwidth use. If your Internet service has a bandwidth cap, that’s definitely something to be aware of when moving to a VoIP service. Once you have the connection and a VoIP compatible phone, you can start making calls and saving money. VoIP also allows you to take advantage of a wide range of advanced features, but that’s a story for another time.