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You’ll hear phrases like VoIP phones, hosted telephony, IP phones and cloud-based telephony being used in business. But what is a VoIP Phone? We’ve answered the most commonly asked questions about this technology to try and help give you a better understanding. Still got a question that we missed? Then get in touch with our team and we’ll be more than happy to help!

What is a VoIP phone?

VoIP phones use voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology to deliver an internet based telephone service.

Calls are delivered over the internet rather than the traditional legacy technology of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). Both the PSTN and ISDN networks are set to be decommissioned shortly.

Due to the reduced infrastructure needed to deliver phone calls on VoIP technology, voice calls can be provided at a very low cost.

VoIP services also use the internet to deliver phone system functionality to the end user. Many new features and useful services are available to small/medium businesses that were previously unaffordable to SME budgets. These include voicemail-to-email, call recording, instant messages, international calling, music-on-hold and call diverts.

Can you use a VoIP phone like a regular phone?

Yes. A VoIP phone offers the same core service that a regular phone does, the ability to make, receive and manage telephone calls. However, functionality is greater whilst costs are lower.

The only real difference is that your voice is communicated via internet connections rather than copper lines. The only requirement is that you have fit for purpose internet access.

Can I use VoIP on a mobile?

Some voice over IP services, such as Bluecube Cloud Voice,  offer a mobile App that allows you to direct your landline calls to your mobile device. This means that you don’t have to be anywhere near your desk phone to make or receive landline calls.

Do I need a VoIP phone?

Openreach is intending to stop providing PSTN and ISDN phone lines completely in the UK by 2025.

This is because the existing telephone service infrastructure is dated and expensive to maintain. As a result, making the switch a VoIP phone system and internet telephony should be a priority for every business regardless of size or what the business does.

What are the advantages of using VoIP?

Using a VoIP system has many benefits for businesses.

VoIP provides communication at a lower cost compared to traditional landline phones. It can also introduce many advanced features that previously required a large internal infrastructure.

This means even small businesses can now introduce features such as on-hold marketing, call recording, voicemail-to-email. CRM integration, remote working via device sync and much more can also be introduced.

VoIP phones also allow for easy scalability for growing businesses. Traditional landline phones required costly upgrades or extensions to a business phone system upon the intake of new employees. With VoIP technology, a handset can very quickly and easily be introduced into the network via an existing ethernet port.

I’ve heard VoIP phones are unreliable. Is this true?

VoIP phones rely on a suitable internet connection to maintain high call quality. When the technology was originally introduced, the IP network was still underdeveloped to support VoIP technology fully. This meant the VoIP phones developed a reputation for delivering poor call quality.

Since the widespread expansion of high-speed business broadband, the reliability of the technology has increased and VoIP technology offers a superior failover plan to legacy PSTN or ISDN technology.

VoIP calls are now delivered in HD quality and feature services such a Disaster Recovery allow for constant connections, so your calls always go somewhere. Our cloud-based telephony has a 99.999% uptime and in the event of an internet outage calls are automatically forwarded to another location or mobile phone.

Does VoIP affect Internet speed?

The speed of your internet connection is very important for delivering high-quality phone calls. By its nature, a VoIP call uses far less bandwidth than for example visiting a website. You can prioritise voice data so that in the event of low bandwidth calls get priority over other data.

Using VoIP when you have a very fast connection won’t affect your Internet Speed too much. Despite this, we would recommend running your VoIP system through a separate, single-purpose, internet connection to your data network. This helps to guarantee the overall quality of your calls and the two connections act as back-up lines to each other.

Is VoIP cheaper than a landline?

VoIP is significantly cheaper than traditional phone lines. This is because it does not rely on the legacy technology of PSTN & ISDN to provide a connection. These traditional lines are copper-based networks that providers find expensive to maintain and will decommission soon.

Using a cloud-based phone system (VoIP) also introduces many features and guarantee for businesses of all sizes. This allows businesses to get better value-for- money from VoIP systems compared to traditional landlines and on-site phone systems.

Interested in getting a VoIP system? Schedule a tailored demo of our VoIP and UC software with one of our team and find out what features your business can enjoy.