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Choosing The Right VoIP Provider

VoIP’s main claim to fame is the remarkable amount of money a small or medium-sized-business can save on its communications bills. So what is the right provider for you?

VoIP has been around of a number of years and is hugely popular amongst the technically minded. However, in the last year or two VoIP is seeing far more widespread adoption at the business and enterprise level.

For a reasonably small outlay of money, individual users can get good quality VoIP services through a number of providers that have sprung up over the last few years. These providers have also branched out into the SMB space, and some of the larger providers, offering enterprise-level VoIP services.

So why go with VoIP now? The main reason is, of course, cost. Most providers offer far cheaper local and international calls than fixed line telephone providers, and in a lot of cases minimal hardware is required – just a VoIP-enabled gateway device and away you go. Issues still remain with call quality for larger businesses looking at multiple lines, but this problem is slowly being ironed out with services which offer increased features to current VoIP users at a low cost, as well as SIP trunking. SIP trunking can be used as an ISDN primary rate replacement for outgoing calls, allowing you to use whichever carrier you like.

For small business looking to get into VoIP, the business case is clear. It can take a huge chunk out of a medium or small business’ communication bill, which is largely phone and mobile. Internet is only a small proportion of most companies’ bills. The ability to have free calls between branches and timed calls will save a bucket of money.

For instance, running everyone’s extensions off the one PBX rather than having discrete landlines scattered around the countryside is key.  That degree of consolidation and allowing people to communicate with each other within the network can be a lot friendlier than doing it over a traditional system. You can’t get much more cost effective.

One of the main problems with VoIP is that it is entirely dependent on the quality of your broadband connection. When voice traffic is high, data traffic can be delayed. On a good day you can’t really notice the difference but on a bad day you might notice the difference in quality. Some providers who own their own network are able to “groom” traffic to ensure disruption is minimized.

Converting to VoIP makes a great deal of sense for small businesses particularly if they are moving into new premises. In addition to traditional PBXs not being required, many providers can offer a free 1-800 toll free number, PSTN porting and pretty much all offer Quality of Service (QoS). Most are now bundling their VoIP products with their broadband offering.

If you are undecided about which provider to use – choose from some of the most popular, like GrnVoip.com.  Some of the best advice is to make a test call using their service to confirm the quality is good, or ask them to provide business references. The good news for small business owners is that you can try out a number of different VoIP services and choose the best one for you.