Tag: Telephone Systems

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Casserly Consulting Blog

VoIP Delivers Benefits That a Traditional Phone System Can’t

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Communication is a critical part of your business’ operations, but how can you ensure that you’re not holding your business back by failing to consider modern solutions to age-old problems? While your telephone system likely gets the job done, you shouldn’t let complacency keep you from striving for improvement. For telephony solutions, you can consider leaving behind your service provider and investing in a digital solution called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

Traditional telephone solutions rely on telephone lines being installed throughout your office. If you are privy to the finer details of this particular process, you know that it can take quite a while to fine-tune your infrastructure to best suit your organization’s needs. Depending on the number of users, each handset needs to be hooked up to your organization’s phone infrastructure. This makes adding new users quite a pain, as you may need to move your office around in order to accommodate such growth. Furthermore, you may find that you don’t use all of the services provided by your telephone service provider. Many providers bundle together services, like television or Internet, without giving users the option to section off exactly what type of service they want. This means that you’re ultimately paying for services that you don’t want or need, which is a considerable waste of resources on your part.

Thankfully, VoIP improves the communications conversation. VoIP allows your organization to take advantage of more flexible telephony solutions by using your Internet connection to transmit and receive calls. It works in much the same way as your traditional phone solution, but with less reliance on your physical infrastructure itself. While you can acquire physical handsets for your employees’ desks, the main draw of VoIP comes from the fact that you can use the application in any way you see fit, whether it’s on your smartphone or your desktop.

Imagine being able to take your workplace phone number on the go so that you won’t miss a thing; or being able to dodge extra costs for long-distance calls. Imagine ditching the expensive services that you’re forced to pay for, like cable television, when all you use is your Internet and phone. By implementing VoIP, you’re eliminating unnecessary expenses that would otherwise place restrictions on your ability to effectively communicate and afford the comprehensive solution your business inevitably needs. With COMPANYNAMEs VoIP solution it’s easy to add user accounts, and since you’re using your Internet connection instead of telephone wires, you’re saving quite a lot of money that could be better utilized if spent elsewhere.

Of course, you still have to be wary of your bandwidth, as you’ll be putting additional strain on your business’ Internet connection in order to use VoIP, but this is only a minor hurdle that a managed IT provider like COMPANYNAME can help you work through. To learn more about VoIP, call us today at PHONENUMBER.

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Cost Savings Are Just The Start of VoIP’s Benefits

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Business owners and managers are always looking to save a buck. Since the cost of doing business continues to climb, looking to the cloud for their business-critical applications is one way to spread computing costs out over time. The cloud offers several solutions to help the modern business keep their costs down, and nowhere can these costs be mitigated more than with a business’ communications.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), specifically hosted VoIP, can help you reduce your communications costs in many ways, including:

Hardware Costs
A hosted VoIP solution makes it possible to get a powerful business phone system without having to go through the headaches and expense associated with installing new phone lines. Anyone who has ever run telephone wire from a distribution hub through the walls of a building knows that, in certain cases, it’s an arduous job. By hooking directly into your company’s broadband network, you can easily add and remove VoIP users on demand.

Additionally, deploying a hosted VoIP system removes the need for PBX hardware altogether. As the major expense in any traditional business telephone system, a PBX system can have huge costs, even thousands of dollars, per user. Even for a smaller PBX roll out, you are looking at a substantial capital investment that is transformed immediately into an operational expense once you choose to introduce a hosted VoIP solution.

Fee Structures
The largest expense for any telephone system is the minutes the phone is being used. Every traditional phone bill will feature costs for long distance calling, which the way it is set up most of the time, are calls that can often be local. Getting rid of this recurring expense is one of the most effective ways hosted VoIP is able to present any business with cost savings.

Broadband Internet is relatively inexpensive, basically mandatory, and available through multiple regional carriers, allowing your organization to buy the resources you need, again, as operational expense, not capital outlays. Moreover, the VoIP service rates are very competitive with the rates that you’d pay if utilizing a traditional phone system, without the need for constant management and maintenance of the system as a whole. A VoIP subscription is typically paid per user, which also provides efficient scalability and organizational flexibility in regards to your telephone system.

Mobility
Another way VoIP helps the modern business stretch its dollar is by adding a mobile aspect to their phone system. Many VoIP systems have mobile applications available through the Android or Apple App Stores. This provides organizations the mobile flexibility they need from their business phone system without paying a pretty penny for individual phones and service plans. Since these applications can be run over Wi-Fi, or through the organization’s virtual private network (VPN), it can save plenty of financial resources normally spent on the deployment of a typical mobile strategy.

VoIP provides all of the most important options that traditional phone systems provide, while adding mobility, and removing the enormous upfront capital costs, long distance fees, and operational maintenance that traditional business telephone systems bring. If your business is looking to cut costs, considering a VoIP system is a good place to start. For more information about VoIP or for to learn more on how to leverage other enterprise communications systems for your business, call the IT professionals at COMPANYNAME today at PHONENUMBER.

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Technology

What’s Behind so Many Businesses Switching Their Phone Systems to VoIP?

b2ap3_thumbnail_voip_is_great_400.jpg The office telephone has been a staple in the business environment for generations, but the extent that each organization uses their telephone will vary. Factors like the number of users, telephone handsets, and wiring required will influence how much use you get from your telephone solution. However, these questions don’t have to be as difficult to ask if you consider the many benefits of a hosted phone system.

We’ll discuss some of the best reasons for using a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and what it can offer your business.

Fewer Costs
A traditional telephone system is provided by your local telephone company. Sometimes these agreements include services that aren’t needed by your organization, like television or otherwise. This can be frustrating, as all you want is the ability to use a telephone, and instead you’re forced to go all-in on some entertainment package that you won’t use.

VoIP doesn’t demand that you sign up for any extra services. In fact, you actually wind up saving money thanks to VoIP using another service that you’re already paying for–your Internet connection. With VoIP, your voice is transferred over the Internet rather than through the traditional telephone lines. Just keep your bandwidth in mind, as VoIP will likely use up more resources than your other network-connected services.

A Simplified Infrastructure
There’s a reason why you take so much time to plan your cabling infrastructure before implementation, and that’s because it’s not easy to make changes once you’ve set your network up. Of course, this also requires that you anticipate growth, which isn’t always easy. For all you know, your business can grow substantially over your first few years in business. How can you anticipate such growth?

While VoIP can’t predict the future, it can help you adapt to change with one-time setup costs. You won’t have to tear down walls or run new telephone lines just to accommodate new employees. All you have to do is contact your VoIP provider and add new users to your system.

More Flexibility
How many phone numbers do you have? Chances are that, as a business owner, you have your personal cell phone number, as well as your in-house number for company affairs. You wouldn’t be the first professional to think that it would be extremely convenient to have all of your numbers on one single device. Thankfully, VoIP offers a solution for this dilemma, too.

With VoIP, you and your employees have a great way to access your work-related phone numbers and contacts. Since VoIP can be used on desktops, smartphones, and even the traditional telephone handsets, it’s a customizable experience that lets you use your phone solution in the way you prefer. Plus, the extra accessibility allows your employees to be productive off the clock too, which can be great for getting ahead.

No matter how you look at it, VoIP can be a valuable investment for your organization. To get started, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.

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Technology

The Case for Hosting Your Phone Solution In-House

b2ap3_thumbnail_on_premise_phone_system_400.jpg Traditional communications solutions are all well and good, but they’re quickly growing antiquated and outdated with the inception of more dynamic solutions. Some organizations have found that cloud-hosted VoIP has advantages over an on-premise telephone solution. While there’s a certain degree of truth to this, an on-site system still presents value.

When you host your own VoIP solution, the biggest difference to consider is the fact that you’ll be managing your own hardware. An in-house system is stored in the server room or another dedicated part of your infrastructure. Alternatively, when you use cloud VoIP, the system is stored off-site, hosted and maintained by an outsourced provider.

Keep in mind that when we talk about on-site VoIP systems, we’re not referring to the traditional landline telephone system that many organizations still use. Rather, we’re talking about a virtual phone system that uses your Internet connection rather than a landline cable infrastructure to send and receive calls. Though VoIP is a service that can easily be outsourced to a third-party provider, it’s possible for you to host an in-house system on a dedicated server… assuming you have the staff to properly manage and maintain it.

Regardless, there are still some benefits to consider regarding on-site VoIP hosting rather than going through a cloud provider. Here are a couple of them.

  • Control: In comparison to a hosted solution, your business has greater control over an in-house phone system. You can easily add new users and phone numbers rather than going through support to do so. This also means that you’re in a greater position of responsibility, so it’s important that you have the staff on-site and ready to maintain your system, should you choose to go this route.
  • Use your existing infrastructure: Consider for a moment how much effort went into building your current infrastructure. You already have a network, servers, and other important hardware hooked up to it. What’s a little more in the form of your in-house VoIP system? If you wanted to add VoIP to a cloud infrastructure, you have to go through the hoops of configuration and setup, which is something that you may not have control over with a hosted solution.

If your organization is considering revamping its communications infrastructure, look no further than COMPANYNAME. We can help your business get the most return on investment from your phone solution. To learn more, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.