The Ins and Outs of VoIP Phones

The right VoIP system will help your business streamline communication, reduce costs, and offer advanced features. Finding a provider that supports your business needs and provides quality customer service is key.

A business VoIP phone works over existing computer network cabling or over WiFi to connect to a telephone network. They operate like traditional telephones but require a good Internet connection with low latency and jitter. This article will give you some ideas on how VoIP phones work.

What Is VoIP?

VoIP is an Internet phone system that connects your internal business telephone network over the Internet. It’s a more flexible communications solution that can scale up with your growing company.

Unlike traditional landline phones, which use circuit switching technology to send and receive data, VoIP uses ‘packet’ switching that breaks down data into small bits sent over the Internet as individual packets. This allows for much more efficient transmission of data and less overhead for businesses.

Depending on the VoIP provider, business VoIP phones can offer a broad range of modern communication features, including Auto-Attendant (electronic receptionist), presence panel, ring groups, call recording, and analytics. They can even enable employees to chime in on business calls from their smartphones, assuming they have the appropriate internet bandwidth.

Cost

Business VoIP systems offer a cost-effective alternative to traditional landline phones. They’re also more flexible and provide various enterprise-class communications features that can help you increase productivity.

VoIP uses fiber-optic cables to send data instead of copper wires, which often exhibit connectivity issues. This ensures better call quality, and many businesses experience lower monthly costs.

Besides that, most VoIP providers allow you to port your existing phone number to their service, which makes the switch smooth and easy. And you can easily scale the system to accommodate new team members and additional communication features. The hardware used by a VoIP system typically includes headsets and IP desk phones from companies. These devices look similar to traditional office telephones but are internet-enabled through ethernet or WiFi.

Features

VoIP systems break your voice data into tiny packets of information, which are then sent over the Internet to reach their destination. This allows the caller and the receiver to connect immediately but doesn’t require both parties to speak simultaneously.

Top providers of VoIP offer advanced features that help businesses operate more efficiently and effectively. One of these is a contact center, which allows teammates to track customer calls and other communications from a single portal. Top CRM systems integrate with VoIP phone services, providing representatives with pertinent client data.

Other VoIP options include enhanced call forwarding, which enables users to route calls to their homes or mobile phones. This is a great feature for businesses with remote workers or travel employees.

Security

VoIP phones offer some benefits to businesses, like streamlined communications and productivity gains. However, any technology system has security risks that must be addressed and mitigated.

Hackers can use several methods to infiltrate VoIP systems and steal data. These include posing as callers to rack up premium calling minutes, snooping on data through unencrypted WiFi networks, and launching DDoS attacks against the network by flooding it with more connections than it can handle.

The best way to combat these risks is by implementing strong security measures. Password protocols that require strong passwords, consistent network monitoring, and ensuring devices are updated regularly with firmware updates can significantly mitigate the risk of an intrusion. In addition, ensuring employees inform IT administrators promptly when they leave the company can help protect against unused or inactive accounts.

Portability

Since work-from-home arrangements and global operations have made a home office more of a necessity, many VoIP systems come with mobile apps to ensure that employees can keep up with company discourse even when away from their desks. This means you can use your VoIP number on a smartphone or computer and chime into company conversations as long as you have the internet bandwidth.

Local number portability (LNP) lets you keep your business phone number as you change VoIP providers – and you can post a personal number, depending on the service you choose. This offers greater mobility and scalability. The technology behind this is similar to circuit-switching telephony but works on a packet-switched network. Voice signals are converted and compressed into data packets and transmitted over the network, and then reassembled in real-time at the other end.