What telephone system will give your business the edge?
If you’re currently on the hunt for an upgrade to your company’s telephone network, you may feel frustrated. There are so many options and each option claims to be exactly what you need!
In an attempt to simplify the process, we have condensed several choices into two specific solutions: SIP Trunks and Hosted VoIP. These are two of the most commonly used telephony systems of the next decade and have some key differences that make them function for different companies.
SIP Trunks can be connected to your VoIP/IP PBX and use the SIP connection standard. The term ‘trunk’ means a group of telephone lines. A SIP trunk is, therefore, a network of telephone lines that are designed for VoIP telephony. To link to the internet you use a telephony switch, and each line serves as a user account.
Compared with a legacy phone network, SIP trunks are a great value proposition. In a traditional phone system, you pay line rental for a number of phone lines but, unless you are a call centre, chances are not all of your staff are using your phone lines all of the time. If that is the case, you will be paying for lines you are not using.
SIP trunking pools the lines together, which means you can decrease the total number of lines as the lines are shared. If a user makes or receives a call, a line is assigned to them for the duration of that call.
Hosted VoIP functions in a similar way but with some specific variations. It does not require any physical hardware in order to function. Although it is true that most businesses will ensure that users have a physical phone on their desks, Hosted VoIP means this is not strictly a requirement. Instead, you can have a ‘soft-phone’ system.
A soft-phone is a piece of software installed on a user’s computer that allows them to make phone calls over the internet–thereby removing any physical phone requirements. In addition, soft-phones are easy for remote employees or individuals who are frequently out of the workplace, such as salespeople who travel.
Through our partnership with the entrust IT Group, we can offer a Hosted VoIP platform which can be completely externally managed, if you would prefer to outsource the management of your VoIP environment and remove the need for your staff to be involved in your telephony infrastructure. Rather, Serval engineers will manage the entire system for you, ensuring that any issues are ironed out and you are kept online.
However, if you would prefer to have control over your telephony, we can provide a self-service VoIP portal that allows you to allocate numbers, listen to call recordings and create users, giving you full jurisdiction over your infrastructure.
If you are interested in learning more about cloud telephony, and whether your business would benefit from SIP trunking or Hosted VoIP – get in touch with Serval IT Systems today!