Leading VoIP handset provider, Cisco, has urged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to switch to business VoIP services in order to take advantage of what it claims could be substantial savings over their existing phone costs.
The advice has come from the UK and Ireland’s business manager in charge of small business sales for Cisco, Patrick Tarbitt, an acknowledged expert in the field of business VoIP (voice over internet protocol).
According to Tarbitt, businesses could save a minimum of 20% on monthly phone line rental fees by changing over to VoIP. In some cases, argues Tarbitt, the savings could even be as high as 50%.
The cost benefits of business VoIP arise, says Tarbitt, because the associated internet protocol (IP) telephony hardware and software is cheaper to supply than the equivalent technology required for making and receiving phone calls via conventional telephone line and ISDN (integrated services digital network) connections. Tarbitt draws particularly attention to the option that SMEs have to install session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking, whereby existing business phone systems can be adapted to send and receive VoIP calls.
Provided, says Tarbitt, firms have access to sufficiently wide internet broadband connections, business VoIP can replace a firm’s entire bank of traditional telephone company line connections. Alternatively, Tarbitt argues, firms can use business VoIP as a ‘low-cost and flexible overflow’ for calls instead of having to add supplementary conventional phone line connections to their business phone systems.
Crucially, argues Tarbitt, the capacity that business VoIP has – once installed – of facilitating the introduction of many additional phone connections without the need for further hardware costs, means that ‘cost savings increase for those companies using larger numbers of lines’.
The cost savings quoted by Tarbitt would apply whether a business was to install in-house VoIP equipment, or use the services of a remote business VoIP provider or VoIP reseller.
