Do you know the demand for Voice over Internet Protocol providers in the UK is growing day by day? Global enterprises are increasingly turning to VoIP Solutions to enhance their contact center’s phone service infrastructure.
Yes, that’s right. The growing number of mobile computing devices is the key driving factor behind the progression of the VoIP market. The invention of the telephone has really been a landmark achievement for humanity. In a matter of decades, the ability of remote voice communication has opened up a whole new world of possibilities and spearheaded the further progress of human civilization.
Besides, the usage of the Internet all over the world and a need for fast data are also driving the implementation of VoIP solution services. Unlike traditional phone lines, communications sent over the internet provide tons of benefits and opportunities for businesses, including better sound quality, decreased costs, more scalability, and phone number management control.
So, if you are searching for the right VoIP solution provider in the UK, US and Australia, then this blog can help you narrow your search and find the best suitable service provider for your key business needs.
What Is A VoIP Phone And How Does It Work?
VoIP stands for “Voice over Internet Protocol.” It’s an alternative to analog phone systems. The fundamental difference between the two is the method of signal delivery, which will be covered in more detail later in this article.
One of the most important things to know about VoIP solutions is the way it carries your call over to its other end. Instead of a landline connection, the internet is used to transfer the call over, which increases sound quality, connectivity, as well as limits the amount of wiring and equipment necessary to get your business phone service up and running.
Types Of VoIP Phones
When it comes to differentiating between the various kinds of VoIP phones that are available to you, they can be distinguished between two basic categories: hard phones and softphones.
Hard Phones
A hard phone is a physical device that uses a VoIP solution service as the main way to transmit a phone call. Visually, they don’t differ from the traditional, stationary phones you find at your home or on your work desk. The one fundamental difference is that they are internet-enabled, whether via WiFi or Ethernet.
Softphones
In layman’s terms, a softphone is basically an application you can install on a device connected to the internet, allowing you to connect to your business network and carry out calls. The software will enable you to make use of all available VoIP features with just a few taps.
How Do VoIP Phones work?
VoIP phones are not much different from a regular telephone in terms of carrying out a phone call. The fundamental difference is that your analog voice signal is encoded into digital data before being converted back to voice signals at the receiver’s end.
In the case of traditional phone systems, your voice gets transmitted through a landline connection, which is solely dedicated to carrying out telephone calls. To make a business communication network work with a landline phone service, you’ll need a lot of cables and the right wall outlets in order to make sure that each and every phone in the office is appropriately hooked up to the same service provider.
A VoIP service allows you to use your existing internet connection to make and receive calls alongside all of the other data that gets sent via the World Wide Web. As you speak, your voice is compressed into many data packets, also known as protocols, which are then sent to and unpacked by the device on the receiving end of your call. Since all that is needed to transmit the call is a working internet connection, opting for a VoIP solution services will drastically reduce the time and equipment it would typically take to set up an internal communications network.
Why Use VoIP Numbers?
Voice over IP numbers are advantageous for your contact center voice stack because they provide:
- A local presence for you to expand into new markets, without the need for physical offices or on-site infrastructure.
- Lower monthly costs compared to traditional phone systems that reduce business expenses and lower total cost of ownership.
- High voice quality that delivers clear and reliable communications.
- Scalability that allows you to grow or reduce your virtual phone lines at your leisure.
- Accessibility to provide an agile and flexible way to work and connect with customers.
- Along with the benefits listed above, you have access to various types of VoIP phone numbers to suit your needs, including…
Direct Inward Dialing (DID)
numbers are assigned to a specific line, allowing customers to directly reach their intended destination without requiring an extension, or going through a menu or call queue.
PSTN
Replacement (TrueLocal) numbers allow two-way communication and guaranteed local caller ID (CLI) for calls made to another country.
International Toll-Free Service (ITFS)
numbers enable customers to reach your contact center without incurring any charges, encouraging engagement from different countries.
Universal International Freephone Numbers (UIFN)
are similar to international toll-free numbers but can be dialed from multiple countries, facilitating international customer reach using only one number.
Mobile numbers
support SMS and voice communication, offering flexibility and convenience for those customers who prefer to interact on their mobile devices.
National (also known as Non-Geographic) numbers
provide a single point of contact for customers in a specific country, enhancing local presence and accessibility for domestic callers.
Full PSTN Replacement
numbers offer a comprehensive in-country solution by providing local numbers and emergency services.
The VoIP market in the UK is expected to grow by $4.83 bn, developing at a CAGR of 9.08% during 2022-2026 (VoIP Market in UK 2022-2026).
What Are the Benefits of Voice over IP?
Modern businesses enjoy using VoIP phone service over traditional telephone lines because they can get a lot more value than just improving corporate communications. Below are a few of the many ways it benefits businesses.
Cost Savings
VoIP solution is a budget-friendly way to set up a business communications system. It could be based on a direct IP connection to your phone service provider, simply on your existing internet connection, or a combination of both. Therefore, it cuts down the cost of internal calls in your organization to virtually none, greatly reduces the expenses of external and international business calls, saving a significant amount of investments on purchasing traditional phone lines, installation, and ongoing maintenance.
On-premises and cloud-based VoIP solutions for modern communication needs are both cost-effective but do have some differences in terms of the cost. Though you need to pay full upfront for an op-premises system, it protects you from the risk of fee increases and means lower monthly cost after expenses are covered.
If your voice and data solutions are currently separate, you can save money by combining the two under one provider. In addition to the cost savings, you’ll also be able to consolidate both internet service and telephony support.
Easy to Install
Compared to traditional phone systems, the installation and configuration of VoIP solution could be super easy. Traditionally, with a landline system, office phones require physical lines to receive phone service. VoIP phone systems eliminate the need to install any physical phone lines. All you need to do is to connect IP phones to the corporate network via Ethernet lines.
Better yet, if you need your IT staff to prioritize more important and revenue-generating projects instead of managing the phone system, hosted phone services leave the work to the service provider and there is no need to worry about any network issues. It would be beneficial for small businesses and start-ups lacking in technical expertise or resources, too.
Clear Voice Quality
When Voice over IP was first introduced, its call quality was indeed unsatisfactory. Long gone are those days thanks to the advancement of broadband and Voice over Internet Protocol technology itself. The “poor call quality” is probably the biggest misconception about VoIP solutions now.
Rest assured as long as you have a fast and stable Internet connection. Most VoIP providers offer a vast number of different protocols and codecs to ensure HD sound quality. With a robust solution and proper implementation, the voice quality can be as good or even better than the landline-based calls. You can’t even tell the difference.
Mobility & Geographical Flexibility
VoIP solution enables businesses to extend their communications system to remote offices and on-the-go workers over SIP-enabled devices. For remote workers, the office is wherever they make it as long as the Internet connection is available.
The deployment of a multi-site VoIP system can not only keep all dispersed branches connected seamlessly but also reduces the spiraling inter-office call costs. Softphones enable employees to make their office extensions mobile with a wide range of call handling features at hand. Additionally, cloud phone systems make it easy to connect geographically dispersed offices under one phone system and the IT admin can easily manage it from any location.
Scalability
Scalability, as one of the most valuable characteristics for businesses, refers to the ability of a system to handle a growing amount of workload, normally by adding resources to the system, without affecting its overall performance or efficiency.
VoIP is a scalable solution that can grow with your business, especially the cloud-based VoIP solution services, which offers greater flexibility for businesses with staff growth or reduction. The increase and decrease of phone extensions can be made immediately and businesses only pay for what they need, without purchasing additional hardware equipment or new dedicated lines. It can all be done, practically in real-time. If you are a seasonal business with fluctuating communications needs or experiencing rapid growth, a hosted model can be a perfect fit for you.
How To Decide If Your Business Needs A VoIP Phone System?
We understand that some businesses might have been using traditional phone systems for quite a long time and are not sure whether a VoIP phone system makes sense for their businesses. There are indeed significant differences between VoIP solutions and traditional landlines. Here are some questions you could ask yourself before making an informed decision.
1) Is your country experiencing the ISDN switch-off?
As technology advances and demands on business communications grow rapidly, the traditional PSTN and ISDN lines can barely live up to the expectations of today’s businesses, gradually slipping further and further into obsolescence. Now the ISDN switch-off is happening all around the globe. As large telecom companies successively announce to switch off ISDN and PSTN, Germany, Australia, Italy, and many other countries around the globe are experiencing a transformation from traditional landlines to all IP solutions.
If you are among the trend, it is critical f to find a seamless and reliable VoIP solution in response to the shutdown. Otherwise, you could lose your telephone service. If you aren’t facing an immediate ISDN switch-off, pay attention to this issue as you may find that your own nation mandates this in the future. You can get ahead of future developments by planning to implement VoIP technology sooner than later.
2) Do you have employees working from home?
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, many businesses, which used to be restricted to traditional landlines, have upgraded to VoIP phone systems to facilitate a teleworking environment. Thanks to VoIP, the remote workforce can make and receive business calls with the same number they have in the office with their own devices and access the same calling capabilities.
VoIP has become a must-have tool for remote working and also a major step towards digital transformation. Furthermore, by using a VPN (virtual private network) connection along with the VoIP solution, your conversation will be shielded by a tunnel of encryption. A reliable VoIP service provider should be able to provide detailed information on how they secure remote and long-distance communications for customers using their business VoIP solutions.
3) Can your current analog system address your needs?
There are several major problems plaguing traditional telephone services.
First of all, traditional PBXs require a high upfront investment, including the purchase of phone lines and hardware (which also needs to be installed by experienced technicians), as well as ongoing maintenance fees. After the installation, it can also be expensive and difficult to scale the system when you experience the need for expansion, such as a significant increase in staff or additional branch locations.
Besides, traditional telephone systems generally provide only basic call features and cannot cope with more sophisticated business communication scenarios. With an increasing number of mobile and remote workforce, lack of mobility is becoming one of its major drawbacks. Analog phone services rely on physical lines to transmit voice traffic, which chains employees at desks to handle business calls.
Unlike a modern option like VoIP solution, customization and integration are quite limited on legacy phone systems. They are not able to integrate into today’s business communications ecosystem, which consists of a complex series of advanced applications, leaving voice calls in soils from the rest of a business’s information systems.
VoIP Phone System Features From DialerKing Technology
Our VoIP Solution services come with powerful call management features and a softphone for stress-free business communication. You can manage inbound and outbound calls anywhere across the globe over an internet connection. The softphone allows employees to dial and connect any international and domestic number in a single click. With our integration support, you can connect popular business tools like CRM, ticketing, and collaboration software without coding. This increases team productivity and fuels sales and customer support operations.
Conclusion
VoIP technology has come to revolutionize business communications in many ways 8n UK, US and Australia. It allows companies to drastically cut unnecessary costs related to basic operations, thanks to free phone calls via the World Wide Web. Additionally, it has brought UC platforms to all of those who work from home, streamlining business operations even further.
If you’re tired of poor audio quality and clunky phones interrupting conference calls, switching over to a VoIP Solution service may just be the fix your business needs to get back on track. Our Team at DialerKing Technology will help you upgrade both in terms of saving resources and conveying information in a much easier manner.
