Business VoIP Pros and Cons
What You Need To Know

An Overview of
Shared VoIP Pros and Cons

Here I will be outlining the VoIP pros and cons by type and size of business. It's better to look at it this way, because some businesses will benefit from VoIP and some believe it or not, may not…

With that said, at some point all but the smallest of businesses will be using VoIP whether they know it or not, because all major service providers are currently using VoIP on their own IP backbones (the main arteries that carry voice and data traffic worldwide) if not on the local connection to the business location as well.

Thing is you may not know it, because it all hooks into your "old" phone system that still requires an analog, PRI or digital T1 connection anyway, so what do you care? But all this will change as more and more phone systems sold are IP ready or an "IP PBX"

Many SMBs may be using
VoIP and not know it!

This may be occurring at your location already! With a service provider implementation (click here to learn more about integrated T1) and an integrated access device at our business premise; we've learned the first "pro" of all VoIP implementations. Namely voice and data convergence and its beautiful by-product - dynamic bandwidth allocation.

Convergence and this beneficial dynamic bandwidth allocation basically are simply using one facility (Internet or service connection) to bring our voice and data services to our location. Bye bye Phone Company, hello Internet Telephone Service Provider (ITSP).

We no longer need Ma Bell
to give us dial tone

With analog service, dial tone comes from Ma Bell's local central office. But now with VoIP, all we need is a quality Internet or data connection (we don't always use Internet, we may simply be talking to another branch over a Wide Area Network (WAN) connection) Am I allowed to have a parentheses inside another one? Oh well, I digress.

This is the basic and big VoIP "pro" because we leverage a single set of wires to bring in all our stuff. Dynamic bandwidth means if we're not on the phone, we have the entire pipe for Internet. If we have lots of people on the phone, we have a little Internet, hopefully enough to do what we need to at the time. So dynamic bandwidth is a main by product of convergence - using VoIP on a single set of wires if you will.

By the way, if you're a call center or have VERY heavy in or outbound calling, you have special needs. Much of this article will apply, but get a hold of me for a deeper discussion, because you'll need it to really leverage VoIP. Contact E-Dude About Business VoIP Phone Service

The Big Con

So, since we have at least one big "pro", we have to have at least a BIG "con" as well – right? I mean VoIP pros and cons must be, well, just that.

So anyway, the big con with almost all VoIP deployment is voice quality. That's right – how does the quality of your voice sound when it gets to the other end, and conversely how does their voice sound as it comes back to you? Believe it or not, problems with one do not always also occur with problems with the other. This is an exceedingly frustrating situation many of my customers can't seem to wrap their minds around.

I.e.: You're talking to someone using VoIP, and they sound fine to you, but they keep telling you (or worse yet, don't ever tell you, and never deal with you again because they cannot understand you…) that they cannot hear you, you're "breaking up" you sound like Darth Vader, you sound like chirping crickets or some such.

I won't go deep into these issues, because they are covered in other of my articles, start with VoIP problems? Learn Why and How to Fix It to learn more. Let's just say here, it's generally due to poor quality, insufficient BANDWIDTH, or both.

So if our main con in is poor voice quality, its usual cause is inadequate or improper bandwidth - get it? Good.

Important to realize here as well, that unlike a "regular, old phone call" or a cell phone call, simply fixing the connection, getting more bars or whatever is not necessarily going to help here. We may regularly have issues where one party can hear the other OK, but not the other way around.

Now let's get onto other issues with regard to specific types and sizes of business.

Alright, so most of you that know me by now realize I get going, and going, and going, 'cause I LOVE THIS VoIP STUFF!.

And yes - this article got a little out of hand. To make it easier, I'll provide links here to jump to the section that pertains to your type / size business. That said however, understand that other sections may pertain to you. For instance an enterprise decision maker will want to be familiar with the SOHO VoIP pros and cons if he or she has a bunch of small offices, or virtual workers.

Likewise a Small Business from 8 to about 50 lines with branch offices may want to read the Top Special Opportunities & Multi Location Business section.

Alright, let's get going on the good VoIP pros and cons stuff!

NEXT VOIP PROS
AND CONS ARTICLE

VoIP Pros and Cons, the Top Reasons to Move to Business VoIP

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