Burnt Orange Solutions – What is VoIP?
Our Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions promise to have a one-hour response time for all your IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to us. We pride themselves on ensuring our clients understand their IT concerns by providing a straightforward and reliable solution with exceptional service. In our latest IT Tip, owner Gareth answers the question what is VoIP, and why is it useful?
What is VoIP?
In the simplest terms, VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) is a way for phone conversations to be transmitted over the Internet instead of using traditional phone lines. Without a doubt, all phone communications will be transmitted this way in the very near future. Like it or not, you will eventually be using a VoIP phone system. Here’s why…
Do you remember Hurricane Sandy? One of the hardest-hit areas was Mantoloking, an island off the coast of New Jersey. The storm destroyed the city’s copper telephone network that had kept it connected to the rest of the world for over a century.
Instead of replacing it, one of the companies that provides telephone service to the area, Verizon, chose NOT to rebuild the island’s copper network. Instead, Verizon replaced it with their wireless service, Voice Link. This kicked off a number of complaints from residents who wanted their old landline phone back, but it was not a battle they could win. This is only one example of similar situations happening all over North America. Phone providers are opting to retire traditional phone lines, instead of repairing them when they fail. In their place, they are installing fibre optic cables that carry VoIP.
In fact, the traditional landline is not expected to last through the next decade. A whopping 40% of households use only wireless phones, and less than 10% have ONLY a landline. VoIP is coming your way!
VoIP for Business
To a business, VoIP can be much more than just the technical underbelly of how your voice reaches the other end. For the price of a single phone and a monthly rental, a small company can have all the bells and whistles that a 1000 person business would have in their phone system.
How? In basic terms, all businesses will soon have their phone systems hosted by a provider – similar to having your email hosted by Office 365 or Burnt Orange Solutions. This means that small businesses share the same phone system as the 1000 person company and have all the same capabilities, from voice mail to phone trees (i.e. press 1 for this and 2 for that).
VoIP is both the present and the future for telephone systems. You are already using VoIP somewhere in your life, you just may not have known it!
Hopefully, this article has answered the question what is VoIP, and may have even convinced you it’s the true way of the future!
Setting up VoIP for Your Business
If you are ready to upgrade your phone lines to VoIP, the IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions can help! We offer solutions tailored to fit the particular needs of your company and remain available with our one-hour response time IT support once the installation is complete!
Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:
- Managed Networks
- Backup and Recovery
- Data and Network Security
- Hosted Services
- Telephone Systems
- Secure WiFi Networks
“IT Support You Can Trust and Understand”