DISPELLING VOIP MYTHS ABOUT QUALITY & RELIABILITY
It comes as no surprise that VoIP services are viewed with skepticism by many in the marketplace because new technologies often require time to become widely accepted.
I think back to major innovations such as the personal computer or the smartphone. At the time many didn’t believe consumers wanted a computer at home or that anyone would want to carry email and the Internet in their pocket. Those naysayers were wrong then and those that criticize VoIP are wrong today.
Top 3 Objections to VoIP for Business
Rationale to keep traditional telephone service usually revolves around reliability and quality concerns because someone had a bad experience or has a friend that had a bad experience. Yes, there are low quality providers out there, but by and large, reliability and quality are better for VoIP services than they are with traditional telecom technologies.
Let’s look at a few common VoIP objections I’ve witnessed over the past few years:
“Traditional or analog services don’t need electricity to work, so they are more reliable.”
It is true that POTS (plain old telephone service) are line-powered, but it is very difficult to find a telephone device that does not require an electric connection. In the event of a power failure, your line would work, but the phone connected to it probably won’t… so that line is worthless anyway. In larger businesses that utilize Primary Rate Interface (PRI) connections, the phone system and all the individual phones require power. So, unless you are putting a UPS battery backup system at each desk, your services are down too.
“VoIP calls are choppy, have echo, or cut in-and-out. That means VoIP is low quality not suited for business use.”
Many of us, including me, have heard bad quality VoIP calls, but that poor quality is not the norm for VoIP. Quality problems arise because the data packets don’t get between your ear and the telephone provider correctly. Data networks are subject to packet loss, congestion, and jitter that all can cause poor quality VoIP calls. However, all is not lost because a properly-configured network solves these issues. All network elements between the phone and provider should have QoS (quality of service) configured. Good-quality bandwidth is also a must. Inconsistent packet delivery won’t matter much to the email you get or the web page you load, but it will make a big difference to your phone call. We can help you get clear VoIP calls.
“My traditional phone system hasn’t been down in years, I can’t say the same for my computer.”
VoIP systems aren’t the same as your PC. Good VoIP providers use industry-leading maintenance plans and architecture that provides uptime that’s well above that for most computers. Additionally, a hosted phone system in the cloud gives the opportunity for redundancy that traditional phone equipment simply cannot offer. Multiple data centers provide geographic diversity for routing and call processing. Deploying more than one bandwidth provider at your office not only gives computers two outbound routes, it does the same for voice traffic; that isn’t very easy with traditional telecom. (We can help you set up the proper network for VoIP business systems. Contact us today.) Even in the event of an outage at your office, calls processing in the cloud mean your customers don’t get a busy signal (like they do with traditional phone systems); they can be routed to mobile phones, other offices, or voice mailboxes.
Should You Use VoIP for Business?
The short answer is probably. Overall, VoIP services are the future of communications.
Migrating to cloud services (like VoIP) can be easy if you have the right expert to guide you. Anyone can have problems with a VoIP connection, but configuring your network properly and managing to the right things will give you VoIP calls that are as good (if not better) than traditional telecom connections.
We can help you pick the best VoIP system (and supporting networks) to meet your business needs.
