The changing face of telephony communication in 2020

We have seen a surge in demand for mobile CAD workstations, along with all the crucial accessories and hardware which ensure that working from home is a pain-free experience.

When it comes to communication for remote working, many of us will have become familiar with using collaborative applications such as such as Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx, Zoom and many more which enable us to all keep connected during this period of uncertainty.

But what about your office telephone lines?

Depending on your telephone system setup, you may find its harder than it should be for your customers to reach your teams, or the individuals they need within your organisation. This could potentially lead to customer complaints or even loss in business opportunities coming in.

For the past few years, businesses have seen the emergence of many cloud-hosted services used in a variety of ways. Telecoms solutions follow the same trend through the use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.

What is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the term to describe a complete internet telephony service. VoIP systems most commonly use the SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) standard to send and receive data between endpoints for voice, video conference and media distribution.

It provides a wide range of facilities, functions and features that allows you to link your fixed telephony and mobile easily and efficiently. This helps to improve productivity by never missing a call or losing contact.

Since 2015, this has become ever more important since BT’s announcement of the digital ISDN service withdrawal, meaning that businesses will have to upgrade their lines to a suitable SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) service for a continuation of their telephone setups.

ISDN circuits (which provide a fixed-line service to a premises) will be withdrawn in 2025 and ordering of this circuit type will not be possible after September 2023. The technology behind ISDN is based on the old-fashioned legacy network which is subject to high maintenance and repair costs and reduced reliability. These lines also require a connection to a traditional PBX telephone system (Private Box Exchange) that has its own on-going maintenance costs to consider.

As a result, this has initiated many businesses to make the transition to ensure that they do not get left behind with their telephony setup.

How easy is it to migrate to VoIP from traditional lines and equipment?

It has never been easier to update your telephony setup…

Start by to porting your existing lines to a cloud-based VoIP service, cut ties with your ageing equipment and allow full flexibility on exactly how and where your company call traffic goes.

Once you have a set date for porting, all you need to do is plan how many handsets or users are needed, how you want calls to be routed, many of these settings can even be set up from within administrator portals for a self-service solution.

To learn more about VoIP, read our next blog post which explains how VoIP works and its benefits.

In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to us on 0345 370 1444 or info@symetri.co.uk if you would like to discuss your business telephone needs.