Listen to Your VoIP Service Providers Advice
Keeping in touch with your PBX vendor and VoIP service provider after your installation is important when you use a premise-based PBX solution. While your hosted VoIP service provider can monitor every aspect of your service activity and be proactive in provisioning your service, premise-based IP PBX vendors typically have little to no insight into how you use their product. In concept – this is a difference between having a full service communications experience vs. a do-it-yourself approach. Not that there is anything wrong with the latter but such approach is more involved and requires greater degree of expertise. Your voice carrier who provides service to your premise-based IP PBX has no idea or interest in knowing how that system is performing either unless, of course, they are retained to manage it.
Observations on Selling Small Business VoIP
With all the talk about hosted telephony over recent years it’s no wonder some organizations feel sceptical about making the switch away from their current solution. Most organizations are inherently conservative and tend to adopt a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. Part of this mentality comes from inherent human stubbornness and preference … Read more
Can Your IT Department Handle the Switch to VoIP on Their Own? (Pt 3)
There are certainly situations where someone might need to host their VoIP PBX system on-site and where they really should have their own IT department handle that system. Typically these companies have are either too small (3-4 users) and require very limited set of key system features. Others are very large and require advanced degree of integration of their Unified Communications into their back office system architecture.
The rest of the businesses fall somewhere in between and that makes them good candidates for hosted PBX solutions.
Can Your IT Department Handle the Switch to VoIP on Their Own? (Pt 2)
… if you had an illness would you assume that just any doctor would be able to handle it? If you had a highly specific ailment would you believe any general practitioner would know the solution to your problem? For that matter would you believe anyone who falls under the umbrella of “doctor” could provide you with the answers you’re looking for, including paediatricians or even vets?
Will there be 1 Billion Mobile VoIP Users by 2017?
most VoIP users aren’t paying a dime for their IP telephony. Many mobile VoIP apps, as well as many desktop VoIP applications, are completely free to use, and it’s questionable how many people will really want to start shelling out for what is often utilized as an auxiliary service.
Will VoIP Taxes Become a Big Issue for IP Telephony?
Right now the average wireless service sits beneath a 16.23% tax rate. Because this tax rate is a combination of federal and state/local taxes that number can jump as high as 23.69% in certain states. That’s a huge tax burden on wireless services and passed right on to you, the consumer. While landline telephone services aren’t taxed at quite as high a rate they still significantly increase the price of signing a traditional telephony contract.
A “Realistic” Picture of IP Telephony’s Cost Savings (Pt 2)
Think about it this way- unless your department is already grossly over budget, or unless your department has been explicitly instructed to cut costs, saving money isn’t that big of a deal in-and-of itself. In the absence of immediate budgetary pressure decision makers aren’t looking to spend less.
A “Realistic” Picture of IP Telephony’s Cost Savings (Pt 1)
Price is a huge factor when it comes to deciding between sticking with traditional telephony services and making the jump to IP telephony. It’s one of the biggest selling points IP telephony providers use to push their technology, and it’s one of the clearest, firmest, more directly measureable ways decision-makers at an organization can see the benefit of switching over to IP. After all, while organizational flexibility and scalability are great benefits they can seem a little abstract, factors whose potential may be difficult to envision when a business is currently locked into a relatively fixed traditional telephony technology set-up.
Is non-Interconnected VoIP a de-facto “Communications Technology”?
Non-interconnected VoIP effectively received its communications classification with the 21st Century Communications and Vide Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA), which had a lot to say about what it called “non-interconnected VoIP service.” This is a broad-ranging classification that applies to pretty much any technology which involves “real-time voice communication” via IP (that hasn’t already been identified as an interconnected VoIP service). The FCC’s rulings within this act seem fairly limited as they pretty much only define strictures for service registration with and contribution to the TRS, but the simple fact this act labels non-interconnected VoIP as a “communications service.”
Is Regulatory Creep Inevitable for VoIP?
It’s clear that some level of regulation is necessary for the VoIP industry to ensure a certain standard for service quality. But excess regulation may lead to an unfortunate circumstance where the technology isn’t allowed to advance in any noticeable way and where the existing telecom giants retain all their incumbent power.