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Chances are you know someone who’s using free or consumer-class VoIP solutions and making long-distance calls for “free”. But is this “Voice over IP” or VoIP technology suitable for organizations like yours? Will it provide the business-class security and reliability you expect in your phone system?
VoIP (Voice over IP) is the technology used to transmit voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP (Internet Protocol)-based network. With VoIP, voice conversation is broken up into packets of data which are transmitted over the Internet or over a proprietary broadband network before being reassembled on the terminating end of the call.
Business-class VoIP provides tight integration between the desktop you use everyday today and the phone system that today runs on a separate technology. Now, the email, calendaring, and instant messaging on your desktop becomes integrated with the telephone, video, audio conferencing and facsimile of your VoIP solution. The benefit to you? Single directories, unified messaging, and self management of your phone configurations all from one interface.
Is VoIP a Fad or a Legitimate Trend?
Recent research indicates that VoIP is here to stay. A November 2005 survey by Infonetics Research found that VoIP adoption is well under way, with 14% of small-, 23% of medium- and 36% of large-sized organizations already using VoIP products and services. By their estimates, nearly half of small and two-thirds of large organizations in North America will be using VoIP products and services by 2010.
Osterman Research also believes that the market for VoIP will increase substantially, growing from 13% of all email users in 2005 to 64% of all email users in 2009.
The bottom line is that both consumers and large and small organizations are using VoIP today in a stable, secure and productive manner.
Benefits of VoIP
VoIP solutions, unlike traditional phone systems, are not separate from the data infrastructure. Voice and data networks are converged, reducing operating costs and increasing employee productivity. Nearly three in four organizations surveyed by Osterman Research indicated that lower telephony costs were a motivating factor to move, while many feel that improved user productivity and improved communications with remote sites are key motivators. Indeed, there are three major reasons to use VoIP:
- Increased functionality
- Improved productivity and mobility
- Lower cost
Increased Functionality
VOIP makes easy some things that are difficult to impossible with traditional phone networks. Standard features include call forwarding, hold & transfer and 3-way conferencing. Advanced features include:
- Simultaneous ring, enabling one incoming call to ring multiple phones simultaneously, so that users can answer that call on their cell phone or home phone, for instance, when someone calls their desk number.
- Selective call forwarding, enabling calls from certain individuals, or within certain time periods, to be forwarded to a different phone number.
- Remote forwarding, enabling users to use any phone located anywhere to remotely forward calls from one phone to another.
- Unified messaging, enabling users to receive and listen to voice mail in their mail inbox; the voice mail is attached as a .wav file.
User self service, enabling users to control various features and functionality either from a web browser or by telephone.
- Click-to-dial, enabling automatic dialing when users click on a phone number in their email, on a web page, in a corporate or personal directory or in other LDAP directories.
Improved Productivity and Mobility
The predominant tools you and your employees use every day are email and their phone. VoIP solutions integrate these tools to make employees more productive. When users get a voicemail in their VoIP mailboxes, they also receive an email in their Outlook inboxes with the voice mail attached as a .wav file. They can then save, delete, organize and manage voicemails in the same way they manage their emails.
VoIP is a great time-saver and productivity tool for your telecommuting employees, mobile workers, and “road warriors”. It can enable you and your organization’s employees to connect anywhere in the world and appear as though you never left the office.
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