Business VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol, better known as VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.

Just like a modem converts digital signals from the PC into analogue (voice) traffic for transmission over a phone line, a business VoIP-enabled phone or VoIP adaptor converts your voice into digital packets (using the special SIP protocol) for transmission over the internet. If you make a call to another business VoIP phone, the opposite process occurs at the other end, and your voice emerges intact from the ether. If you make a call to a mobile or landline, your business VoIP provider's gateway decodes the call and sends it on as an ordinary voice call to the telephone exchange (PSTN). You can make and receive calls from other business VoIP users, mobile users, and people with ordinary landlines. The integration between any ordinary line and VoIP is complete and undetectable to callers.

VoIP can be implemented in several ways, from a software program on your computer used with a headset and microphone to adaptors used with regular analogue phones or you can use dedicated business VoIP phones which look and act like regular phones but have specially designed chips to improve call quality.

Small to medium-sized businesses with several employees, especially those with distributed offices and teleworkers are likely to get the maximum benefit from VoIP. It cuts your business telephony cost; all calls to other VoIP phone users are free and other calls are usually competitively priced. You can configure your system to give whatever impression you want to customers. For example, if you have associates or employees in other areas of the UK or even abroad you can give them all extensions on the same number, or their own numbers with the same area code as your head office. No-one need know whether you have city centre offices, or a virtual office.