VoIP’s Benefits Outweigh the Disadvantages

Voice over Internet Protocol (or VoIP) solutions were created to give businesses another way of utilizing a service that they were already paying for - their Internet connection. Naturally, like any solution, VoIP can have its disadvantages; but most of these disadvantages hinge only around the lack of a strong and reliable bandwidth connection.

Bandwidth is still not cheap, which means that if you want to enhance your organization's telecommunications as a part of a cost-reduction strategy, a cloud-hosted VoIP solution may be your best bet. Let's discuss bandwidth and how VoIP provides enough value to effectively pay for itself.

Investigating Bandwidth

Just like a private user goes through their local ISP in order to get Internet service, any business needs to do the same. Your Internet speeds will be mostly dependent on how much bandwidth you purchase. As you consider your bandwidth needs, you need to consider how much your critical applications will need to function properly, where your resources are located, and which of your solutions needs the most bandwidth to function properly.

The majority of modern businesses may have a few ISPs to choose from, but a business’ needs often come at a premium price point.

Smaller ISPs may offer some other options, but if you want to leverage a cloud-based VoIP platform, you’re going to need something a little higher than the base service plans that are available. Really, if you’re considering adding a hosted VoIP platform to your business’ communications platform, you will want to make sure that you have the bandwidth to support everything that VoIP can do.

One benchmark to keep in mind is that you should have at least 100 Kbps for each concurrent VoIP call being placed. Thus, if 20 people in the office all need to be on the phone at the same time, you’ll need at least 2 Mbps. Naturally, this isn’t likely to be enough for all of your needs, but it is a good baseline to establish when preparing to implement a VoIP platform.

The Value Cloud-Hosted VoIP Provides

Once you’ve chosen to make the switch over to VoIP, you have another decision to make: either you purchase a dedicated PBX server, or you utilize online hosting for your VoIP solution with Macro Systems' help. With this help, you can see a variety of operational benefits, including:

• Access to a fully-integrated communications platform. A cloud-hosted VoIP solution easier to deploy, and they usually integrate will with any other solution your company may use, including your CRM tool, videoconferencing, or email solution.
• Complete customization. With cloud-hosted VoIP, a business can choose the features that it actually needs and ignore the ones it doesn’t.
• Dynamic communication and business features integrated. VoIP systems come with many features baked-in that otherwise would only be available as premium features, if at all.
• Mobility. In addition to being available via a desktop client or physical headset, many VoIP solutions provide mobile device applications that allow you to take your calls with you.
• Flexibility. VoIP solutions are very easily scaled to a business’ particular needs, allowing the business to funnel their resources to other needs more easily.
• Cost reduction. Among business-grade telephone systems, a cloud-hosted VoIP solution features reduced capital costs and operational outlay.

The biggest drawback to leveraging a cloud-hosted VoIP solution is the fact that you might have to spend a little more on your Internet connection. Nevertheless, weighing the benefits against the costs, it certainly could still be worth it for you to adopt.

To learn more about implementing a VoIP solution, or any other IT need you may have, reach out to Macro Systems today at 703-359-9211.