Are you tangled in uncertainty about a VoIP phone system?

Imagine freeing yourself of that closet full of telephony equipment called your PBX (Private Branch Exchange).

You’d have no more complex wiring to deal with. You’d end the lack of visibility into your most crucial piece of communications equipment. Heck, you could even kick the phone guy to the curb.

Think these thoughts are too good to be true? Think again my friend.

You can free yourself from the pain of your current PBX. You can put an end to the unknowns of working with a black box. You can even stop the dollars from exiting your wallet.

All you need is a VoIP phone system.

Now before you go racing out to buy a VoIP phone system, let’s not forget the reason you are here – to learn more about a VoIP phone system . After all you want to understand how a VoIP phone system can lower your maintenance costs, give you control over your communications and save your business money, right?

Thought so – let’s take a look.

What exactly is a VoIP phone system?

You use your phone system (also known as a PBX) every day, so you already know that phone systems are responsible for handling your call control and managing your connection to your telephone service provider. What you might not be familiar with is VoIP.

VoIP is short for Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP is a way to make calls across your Local Area Network (LAN) and or Wide Area Network (WAN). The technology behind VoIP converts your analog voice into digital packets which are then sent across a network using the Internet Protocol (IP) to their end destination. VoIP is most commonly associated with making calls across the Internet.

As you’ve probably guessed, a VoIP phone system gets connected to your LAN. It uses your LAN as the backbone of the system – connecting your VoIP phones and your VoIP service provider to the VoIP PBX. That makes a VoIP phone system a phone system that uses IP technology to handle your call control and manage your connection to the Wide Area Network over which your VoIP service comes.

Even though a VoIP phone system uses VoIP and is connected to your LAN most systems can connect directly to the Publicly Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). This gives you the ability to use both VoIP and the PSTN for your calling.

If your head is spinning right now, don’t worry. Reading about the differences between your existing PBX and a VoIP phone system should help.

How is a VoIP phone system different from your existing PBX?

A VoIP phone system is quite the change from your existing PBX.

• Your existing PBX uses TDM technology. A VoIP phone system uses IP technology.
• Your existing PBX uses its own closed network. A VoIP phone system uses your existing LAN.
• Your existing PBX uses the PSTN for dial tone. A VoIP phone system uses a VoIP service provider and or the PSTN for dial tone.

Despite using a different technology, network and primary voice service, what makes a VoIP phone system truly different is its ability to easily integrate with your other business systems. This integration of systems allows you to increase productivity, efficiency and sales. When’s the last time you said that about your existing PBX?

There we go getting a little ahead of ourselves again (sorry). It’s true that there are numerous benefits you will receive when you purchase a VoIP phone system. But before we get to those, how about we check out what a VoIP phone system offers?

The basic features of a VoIP phone system

VoIP phone systems give you a ton of advanced features and functionality. Here are the most common features that you’re likely interested in:

Direct Inward Dialing (DID)
Caller ID, Call Transfers, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Three-way calling
Call Park, Call Pick-up
Call Monitoring and Call Recording
Call Queues and Call Routing
Voicemail (and voicemail to email)
Conference Calling
Remote or Virtual Extensions
Analytics and monitoring tools
Call reporting
Ability to utilize VoIP and PSTN calling methods
Web based management
Application integration