Over the past decade Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions have become more popular and are rapidly becoming the telephone solution of choice for businesses.
VoIP has been credited with providing substantial cost savings for many businesses by combining features such as call forwarding and voicemail to email; that would have incurred an additional cost using a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) line.
Despite the potential to improve efficiency, some businesses are continuing to favour a PSTN phone system as it is the most familiar to the majority of office workers. Employees don’t need any extra training or support and there’s no additional hardware or software required.
Cost savings
However, PSTN systems can quickly run up a large monthly bill as features such as long-distance calls, toll-free numbers or call forwarding are often not included in call plans. Organisations that want to implement these services often consider VoIP as it has the potential to provide a better return on investment in spite of set up costs.
As the reliability of a VoIP service is based on the reliability of the internet connection there is a concern that if the internet is down, so is your communications system. This is often an argument for PSTN lines as they have a minimal risk of outages for phone services.
High speed dedicated line
However as businesses make use of virtualisation and cloud technologies; many have looked at upgrading their connectivity to services like Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) to provide reliable and consistent speeds.
VoIP services can be supported by fibre optic broadband which certainly provides high speeds but isn’t a dedicated connection like EFM or leased lines.
The ideal solution will naturally vary between companies and the different connectivity solutions available to each premise.
Related Links:
EFM
Broadband
PSTN lines