VoIP and Internet Telecoms - What’s the difference?

Nov. 18, 2010 - PRLog -- VoIP has been with us for more than 10 years and without boring you with the techno-babble, it’s simply a way of plumbing in telephones. Instead of having separate telecoms and computer cabling systems, VoIP allows phones to share the same network infrastructure as office computers, bringing telecoms and IT together to make it all easier, cheaper and quicker to install and manage.

If you're thinking about using VoIP for the first time, think yourself lucky. It hasn't all been plain sailing, particularly back in the early days. Computers sending big files to each other disrupted phone calls trying to use the same network. Tinkering IT managers didn't understand telephony, often switching off telecoms for whole businesses because they forgot the phones were also connected. Phone system engineers took fault calls from thousands of angry customers, all because the IT department had been tinkering in the server room.

VoIP has matured very nicely over the years, becoming fully accepted for operating a business telecoms set-up. IT managers know what they're doing, even the cheapest networking equipment now supports VoIP, and computers and phones co-exist in harmony on the same computer network without cutting each other off.

Why use VoIP?

As VoIP developed, connecting telephones to computer networks brought with it a new generation of telecoms software applications and multi-media communications. Using state-of-the-art touch-screen phones costing upwards of £500 a time, you can check motorway cameras before you drive home, see who's at the  door, hold video conferences, check facebook, order lunch, and do it all with the desk phone. Sound expensive? In most cases yes, and you can already do most of it with your computer.

Unless your staff have got to have the coolest looking phones, and/or you’ve got money to burn, the current trend is to install more "standard" VoIP handsets; identical in look, feel and operation to traditional digital business phones.

So why bother with VoIP then?

If you’ve got separate phone cabling and/or plenty of CAT-5 installed, if you don’t want to spend out on space-age phones, or maybe if you just aren’t keen on plugging phones into your computer network, you may not be ready to make the jump to VoIP. Your IT network may need upgrading before it’s ready for VoIP, with a cost you’re not ready to meet. You may recognise VoIP as a future requirement and may want to keep the door open for when the time comes.

You’ll be sat in one of three camps: Don’t want VoIP, Might Want VoIP, Must Have VoIP.
Thankfully, there are still manufacturers who offer excellent non-VoIP phone systems with modern digital and analogue phones that will last for years. Others allow you to migrate from traditional telephony to VoIP as and when you’re ready, some even support both simultaneously. A handful are total VoIP systems, for those who absolutely must have VoIP regardless of cost. So all three camps are nicely catered for.

There’s one last thing to consider before deciding. The internet.

VoIP and Internet Telephony

The big thing to bear in mind is that a computer network within a business is hermetically sealed, managed and secure. Everything is set up, locked down, shipshape and Bristol fashion. Data comes in and out via permissions, protocols, ports, proxies and passwords. All IT-related items are labelled (provided you can put up with most IT managers’ weird name policies), predictable and in their proper place and if anyone or anything steps out of line, the IT manager knows within a millisecond and swoops on the culprit before the admin department manage to say "is your email working?" to each other.

The Internet is a computer network too, so logic dictates that VoIP phones would work on it. That means that you could plug a VoIP phone from the office into the broadband and spend your days working from home. It would probably need the IT manager to weave a little magic, then everyone can head home early and the office rental costs would fall through the floor.

Combining the internet with Wifi allows you to deliver business communications to smartphones and mobile devices, and when the major mobile networks start playing ball with wifi, staff on the move will need just one device for everything.

To the mobile network’s dismay, calls over the internet are free because they don't go via the normal land-line route. Great news for the rest of us, particularly for multi-site organisations with huge phone bills. Just add broadband for free calls between the offices, plus centralised operators, local answering services and much more.

So staff rushed home, each with a PC under one arm and a VoIP phone tucked under the other, plugging them into their home broadband connections and hey presto! Digital business phones were connected straight to the office together with computer and email, and staff could spend the day in their pyjamas. No-one would ever know, except for the MD and an ever-so-smug IT manager. But there was a problem.

The internet, far from being a responsible, controlled and mature office computer network, is an irresponsible and erratic teenager in comparison. There is no management, no prioritization and no hope of getting a business-quality phone call to stay connected for more than a few minutes.

Home workers suddenly found that calls were being cut off and even when connected they sounded like they were talking underwater. Customers were soon fed up, and staff soon got dressed and dragged themselves back to the office.

The internet shouts major advantages for business, but has some growing up to do before it becomes a viable alternative to phone lines and particularly ISDN, the standard-bearer for business call quality. It will happen, but for the time being internet calls are generally made between friends and family when quality can be compromised in the name of getting a freebie.

Nothing is free. Not even internet calls.

Ever called someone on a mobile phone?

Mobile phones are still behind the biggest chunk of phone bill costs for UK businesses, and we know that the mobile operators aren’t all that keen on opening up Wifi to give us free mobile calls. So if you're using internet telephony via phone lines known as SIP Trunks, calls to mobiles have to "break out" to the public network, attracting a call cost as much as 5 times higher than normal calls made on ISDN lines. Don't forget the call quality may not be exactly what you're hoping for either.

And you'll probably have to spend out on an upgrade to your broadband connection, or install a dedicated one for voice, as almost all older broadband lines suffer from a shared arrangement known as Contention. If the internet doesn't cut your call off, your old broadband will.

Businesses will also need to install SIP Trunks, cheaper than land-lines but with rental costs all the same. The number of SIP Trunks you need depends on your broadband capacity and your business requirement.

So in order to get free internet calls, you have to pay over the odds for the majority of your normal phone calls, increase your monthly broadband and line rental costs and be prepared for a drop in call quality. It’s a shame the only time a call will be free is when you connect to another internet phone user, and there just aren't enough of those around right now.

What Now?

Thousands of UK businesses are keen to deploy VoIP. The idea of bringing managed telecoms into the IT policy is attractive, as is improved staff mobility and smarter telecoms applications running on PCs and telephones, hence VoIP within the UK business marketplace is thriving. However the customer connection still reigns supreme and for this reason alone, internet telephony remains a thing of the future for even the most forward-thinking companies.

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Southern Communications have delivered professional business VoIP and telecoms services from their Basingstoke premises since 1965, with a long-established reputation for good advice and reliable customer service provided by dedicated and well-trained staff.
The company provides business telephone systems, VoIP solutions, business phone call and phone line services, high-speed broadband and business mobiles.
Website: www.southern-comms.co.uk