Voip has changed the way business operate.  Business are consolidating.  Business cummunication are leaning toward centralize communication management because of the so call technlogy we call Voip.  In an effort to educate business more about voip, I'm wring this article on the PROS and CONS.  Voip definitely has PROS.  It allow business to be more flexible.  It allow business to be more streamline.  Let's say for example, we just implemented Voip for a Health Care Firm.  They have more than a dozen business in Austin.  They have a centralize call center that answer the phone calls for all locations.  Wow, it's must easier to manage 1 call center then to manage a dozen people in a dozen locations.  This Firm now can also have employee working from home.  Having the ability to offer employees more options is another plus.  It's tough to find the right talent, don't we as employer want to keep them once we find them?  The key is to offer more options.  Voip does just that!

CONS!  Let's talk about CONS!  There have been numerous talk about how VOIP lines can save you money.  This is really true most of the time when Bandwidth is already provided.  When you calcuate the cost of Bandwidth and Voip lines together, sometimes traditional phone lines may be cheaper.  When I say traditional, I meant analog, T1, PRI, ISDN, etc.  To me, a business looking to cut cost, should lean toward more the cost saving of labor instead of the direct cost of phones and internet services.  Voip can do that.  For example, multiple offices now can have 1 person answering the phones instead of the traditional 1 receptionist per office.  This is true savings.  No matter how you calculate the cost of Technology, Technology is always cheaper than man hours!

CONS!  Are there more?  Of course!  Voip will probably never be as sturdy or stable as Digital Phone System.  I remember Digital phone system going for years without a single reboot.  I've seen Voip goes for a year or two without a reboot, but not too often.  If your VOIP phones network is sharing the same network with your data network, and your data network goes down, most likely your phone system will go down.  Of course, there are ways around this, but it normally cost a more.

CONS!  QOS!  We must think about QOS!  With digitial phone system, we almost never have to worry about how stable the network is.  Do you have enough bandwidth?  With Voip, we have to take this in consideration.  Especially when we do not want to cough the extra bucks to pay for Guarantee Qos or Cos.  VOIP does not consume alot of bandwidth per calls, but it does adds up.  VOIP problems most of the time are not related to bandwidth.  It's more related to  LATENCY!  LATENCY, which is the delay from point a to point b.  A good way to look at this is MOTORCYLE and 18 wheelers.  18 wheelers can haul much more equipment and packages from one place to another, however it takes 18 wheelers longer to get there.  VOIP needs motorcycle and not 18 wheelers.  It just needs to gets smaller packets to get there faster, instead of larget pakets to destination at the same time.  That's why MPLS, POINT-to-POINT T1, Fiber, and Ethernet hand off have been getting more and more attentions. 

 Check us out! www.bcs-ip.com or call 512.257.1433