| Business VoIP Systems |
Q: How does VoIP talk to the rest of the world ?A: A VoIP gateway can be loosely defined as a mechanism that takes circuit-switched voice from a traditional PBX, converts it to IP and transfers it across a LAN or WAN to another gateway where it is reconstituted back into a format that is understood by the receiving phone system. Q: What is a VoIP PBX ?A: IP PBXs are great if you have the luxury of designing your system from the ground up. They are complete phone systems, usually with options that include many of the IP telephony applications, such as managing your phone from your desktop PC, multi-line call control and automatic call distribution. IP PBXs are usually servers with telephony software and voice cards. Until recently IP PBXs have been targeted at offices with 100 users or less, but Alcatel recently announced a system that incorporates gateway and call processing in a single device and can accommodate up to 50,000 users. There are many open-source IP PBX's available for download which generally run on Linux/Unix systems. Asterisk is one such product The beauty of an IP PBX is being able to create a distributed system. For example, allowing you to distribute your phone system throughout an IP network, so geographically separated phones with features such as direct dial, call forwarding, conferencing and voice mail provide the appearance of being connected directly to the local PBX. Q: What are the advantages of a Business-only VoIP Provider ?A: New to the VoIP market is the advent of the business only VoIP provider. They are not interested in the low volume residential VoIP market and the masses of support personel that are needed to support non-business VoIP provision. There are many advantages of choosing a business only VoIP provider. They usually have done their homework into exactly what the needs of business VoIP provision are, particularly in Australia. This means that they will have invested time and money into particular services for business VoIP provision such as being abldomasin namese to port phone numbers from the original non-VoIP carrier over to the VoIP carrier of your choosing. Business only VoIP providers will also have spent a lot of time and money with the ideal of having a premium service in mind, which means garuantees of VoIP quality.This is paramount in a business VoIP solution as there is no room for dropped calls or shaky VoIP call quality. This is where business grade VoIP providers come into their own. Support is also the next big point that sets business only VoIP providers apart. Big carriers are not likely to provide round the clock support packages for less than a six figure sum. But with the specialization of business only VoIP providers, this is their bread and butter and they will in all likelyhood be happy to provide a VoIP service contract for a much reduced figure. This has been the biggest problem with the movement from PSTN to VoIP for business in this country. there is an element of fear associated with business VoIP use and this is understandable as the phone is the lifeblood of most business. The cost advantages of a business moving to VoIP can be huge with call cost halving on average with the move to a VoIP business solution. This can mean hundreds to thousands of dollars that stays in the business pocket each month which no business can snear at. With an investment of only a few thousand dollars a business can save thousands each month which makes a business VoIP solution an attractive enterprise provided it is a business grade VoIP solution. A business grade VoIP solution will also increase functionalty of a business with many big business features that add to the cost savings for a small to medium sized business. This again makes a business VoIP solution a very attractive option. Reference: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/voip |