What is VoIP?

Not sure what VoIP is and why it’s the right choice for your business? You’re not alone. Many business owners have heard about VoIP, but aren’t really sure how it applies to them. Put simply, VoIP allows you to combine your voice, data and video into a single, easily managed service.

Why VoIP? It’s the first step toward greater efficiency and productivity

Before we start talking about why VoIP is such a great way to go, we should probably review what we mean by “VoIP” in the first place, as well as “Unified Communications”.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows you to have your phone line on an IP network.

Unified Communications offers the power of VoIP combined with a secure network. Combining all of your communciations, including voice, data and video, you can enjoy an easy-to-use business solution that is full of features and just works, and it’s quite cost-effective.

Why VoIP helps you focus on what matters: your business

VoIP is a powerful tool for maintaining a competitive edge. Once you switch to an IP-based Unified Communications system you’ll experience increased productivity as a result of combining and simplifying your communication tools. You’re voice and data will be secure, and you’ll make it easier for your employees to maintain access to your network, whether at work or at home.

Your business will receive many additional features without associated extra fees, including voicemail, caller ID, conferencing, call forwarding and unlimited long distance.

How VoIP helps you cut costs and improve communication with customers and employees

Using tools like online conferencing, screen sharing and video calls reduces need to travel to location
Adding extra phone lines is easy, because VoIP lets you send multiple phone calls across your IP network
Your employees will have more ways to stay connected
By using “presence” technology, you’ll be able to see if your employees are available and how to get in touch with them
Voicemail delivered directly to your email

When people hear Voice Over IP or VoIP they sometimes think that they can utilize their existing internet connection and make all calls for free. This is not necessarily true. They CAN use their existing internet connection, but you must also have an ITSP (Internet Service Provider) to provide the service over the internet. You can get rid of your local voice service provider, but you will still need a provider for the VoIP lines, called SIP trunks.

VoIP has a few different applications that it can be used for. If you just want to lower LD charges and save money by using SIP trunks, that is one application. This can often be done by using a SIP gateway connected to a legacy phone system, a VoIP phone system isn’t required.

Utilizing VoIP functionality

Having a VoIP phone server/system is another way of using VoIP. But even if you have a pure IP phone system, you can still use traditional types of local service such as PRI or even analog lines from traditional service providers. In this case, the IP phone system would reside on the your local network so internally it would be VoIP, but externally to make and receive calls it is not. However, if you have multiple locations, or remote workers or offices, IP phones can utilize the internet to connect to the main system. This is another form of using VoIP.

Even without a pure IP phone system, many of the newer digital systems support IP phones and/or SIP trunks, so you can still get VoIP functionality without the need for a forklift upgrade to your phone system.

So why VoIP from TOPS?

Because it gives you technology that’s just your size. And with Unified Communications you’ll spend less time focusing on technology and more time focusing on what matters – your business.