In addition to the mobility VoIP service allows, with some services-such as RingCentral’s VoIP service-you can also let your employees integrate their VoIP service directly with their favorite business apps, like Office, Google, Salesforce, and Dropbox. A VoIP service’s any-device, anywhere communication capability improves productivity.You wouldn’t need to acquire additional copper lines, change your business phone numbers, or experience any downtime without phone service whatsoever. With VoIP phone service, though, you could use your team’s softphone capability to continue normal phone service throughout the move. With a standard business phone system, you would need to work with your service provider to switch your dedicated phone lines from your existing office to the new location or acquire new lines altogether, and you would need to set up the physical phone system at the new office. This is in sharp contrast to traditional landline phone service which ties employees to their desks if they need to take or make business calls.Īlso, consider what would happen if your company was moving to new offices. VoIP phone service makes businesses’ communication systems more flexible and scalable.īecause VoIP service can work anywhere and on any device with an internet connection, it can make a business’s employees far more mobile, allowing them to work anywhere.VoIP, on the other hand, has far lower ongoing costs, usually allows businesses to call long distance while paying local rates, and includes other services like video calls. Traditional phone service with the large telecommunication providers comes at a significant cost for small businesses, costs that usually include high monthly fees for each business phone line and high rates for long-distance calling (particularly for international calls). The reason many businesses, particularly small and midsize companies, become interested in VoIP phone service is the savings. VoIP service improves mobility for remote and on-the-go employees.Both of these protocols support not only voice but also other types of data-including video transmissions. In terms of connecting to the Internet, a VoIP phone will be assigned an IP address (just like any computer or another internet-connected device) and then will use a domain name system (DNS) to enable it to connect with other IP phones or VoIP-enabled devices.Īs for transmitting voice calls over the Internet, generally speaking, VoIP phones use one of two primary protocols: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), or H.323. Other VoIP phones, however, do not offer PoE capability and instead require a separate A/C adapter to power the unit. This technology is called Power over Ethernet (PoE) and is often preferable for businesses because it reduces clutter and can also reduce cost, combining both power and data into a single cable connected to the phone.
In terms of the physical phones themselves, many VoIP phones can be powered by the same Ethernet cable that connects to the phone to transmit data.
Voice over Internet Protocol is a series of technologies that make it possible for you to make online phone calls by converting traditional analog voice calls into digital packets of data-much like an email message or an mp3-and sending those voice packets between callers over the internet, rather than over the old-fashioned telephone network.Īs for how the VoIP phones themselves function, here is a brief overview of the technologies and processes involved: We’ve already published a page explaining in detail how VoIP works but in case you don’t have time to read it, here’s a quick summary: