VoIP For Small Business - Is it Just Hype?

Due to the fact that very few people truly understand how VoIP works, it is surrounded by false information and false hype. The problem is that many of the people who push these ideas are technology gurus who's experience with VoIP is limited to having setup a VoIP line to their mother-in-laws place to impress their girlfriend.

The reality, coming from a telephone system technician & small business owner is that in 99% of cases you are better off sticking with traditional phone lines.. If you are able to save money by switching to VoIP, chances are you have sacrificed reliability somewhere.

The problem is that to make VoIP a viable alternative to traditional phone lines for small business, you must be able to do 2 things. Make the connection at least as reliable as a standard copper line and make it significantly cheaper to encourage people to change. The problem is that VoIP works by taking a normal phone conversation that uses an entire phone line and compresses it down so much that you could fit around 10 x conversations on the 1 line.

It does this by breaking your voice up in to thousands of tiny fragments of information which are coded, sent down the line and reassembled back in to sound on the other end. VoIP saves people money because instead of paying for 10 x phone lines from the local service provider, they just pay for one, even though 10 people can use the phone at the same time. This is the main area that small business owners can expect to save money by switching to VoIP - The line rental (the fixed monthly cost that you pay for each phone line).

By putting all 10 of your traditional phone lines on to 1 line, you are effectively putting all your eggs in one basket. Phone lines can and do go down quite regularly. You may have never had a problem personally but I can assure you that if you could see how bad the wiring is out in the street, you would quickly realize how lucky you had been up til now. Telephone cabling in most countries is old, under maintained and in some cases under water. By spreading your incoming and outgoing calls across multiple phone lines, you are minimizing the risk of a complete loss of lines.

Yes VoIP is cheaper but you get what you pay for with regards to service up time and call quality. As a small business owner who sells VoIP capable phone systems and who has technical know how to setup reliable VoIP services, do I use VoIP in my own offices? No. We have traditional ISDN phone lines in both our offices. If there was a financial incentive for me to use VoIP then there might be for you too, but there isn't... It's all hype.

This article was written by Simon Rule owner of Astro Communications - Supplier of business phone systems in Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane. For more information see our website: Telephone Systems for Small Business