Internet-based phone service (Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP) offers a range of flexibility and features that aren’t available with conventional telephone service. However, you must be willing to deal with a few tradeoffs to get those added features. If you’re thinking about moving your business over to VoIP, let’s consider a few of these advantages and disadvantages.
The Pros of VoIP Service
Here are just few benefits your company can enjoy by making the move to VoIP:
• Lower costs. You’ll generally pay a lot less for a monthly VoIP service than you would for a landline—plus, VoIP calls can be placed almost anywhere in the world for little or no money. If your company does a lot of business internationally, your savings could easily run in the thousands of dollars by switching to VoIP.
• Mobility and flexibility. Since VoIP service can integrate with your cell phones and mobile devices, you’re not limited to using the service in the office. In fact, you can send and receive calls from just about anywhere, as long as you have some sort of viable Internet connection.
• Lots of extra features. VoIP affords a whole array of communication options that make it easy to collaborate and converse with people around the world, including video calls, video conferencing, file sharing and more.
The Cons of VoIP
Of course, before making the switch, you need to be aware of a few of the potential disadvantages:
• Inconsistent quality. Since VoIP service is reliant on the quality of Internet connectivity at any time (rather than a reliable wiring system), you may experience sporadic reception on occasion, pixelated video, dropped calls, etc.—not unlike being in a “dead zone” with your cell phone. Internet quality is being improved constantly, but it’s not 100 percent reliable yet.
• Reliance on power. With a landline, you usually maintain phone service even if the electricity goes out. With VoIP, if the power goes out OR your Internet goes down…so does your phone service.
• Bandwidth issues. Since your phones now share a connection with your computers on the same system, overuse of one may affect the quality or speed of the other. Too many people on the phones may cause streaming interruptions or slower page loads on your computers.
Despite these potential issues with VoIP, many companies feel the advantages definitely outweigh the drawbacks. To learn more about how VoIP can help your business grow, give us a call at 1-877-NetServ.