Business VoIP Solution : Cheaper Bills with Business Internet Phone Service

 1.  Understand your Business VoIP needs and see why so many small and medium sized businesses are using VoIP.
 2.  Complete the FREE Business VoIP quote request form below.  Only four simple steps, takes less than 1 minute.
 3.  Receive customized, no obligation, Business VoIP quotes. Sign up and save up to 80% on your monthly phone bills.

Why use WhichVoIP?

We have helped customers save up to 80% on their phone bills by moving to one of the Business VoIP solutions at WhichVoIP.com

WhichVoIP.com has partnerships with most of the major Business VoIP service providers in the industry. This enables us to provide you prompt and FREE quotes for all of your Business Internet phone service needs. Simply request a free business VoIP quote using the above short form and we will tailor Internet phone service quotes based on your location and needs.

Now let us highlight why Business VoIP has become so popular, in particular the Small to Medium sized Business (SMB) segment. We will show you the VoIP business case and highlight some typical VoIP system configurations you will see for each of the business segments.

Only interested in Data Broadband solutions for your business? In our Data Broadband solutions 101 we highlight some of the broadband data services available today, all of which we can provide free competitive quotes for.

The VoIP Business Case

Traditionally, businesses have used the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for their business phone needs which is basically a circuit switched network. With this system a telephone call essentially takes control of the telephone line for the entire duration of the call. This is not a very efficient or cost effective way to make calls. In addition the PSTN is a heavily regulated network so taxes are charged on every telephone call.

The migration to VoIP business phone solutions has been rapid over the last few years. There are numerous advantages to VoIP technology over the traditional circuit switched system. For example:

• No circuit switched Private Branch eXchange (PBX) is required. This is a large and very expensive piece of equipment used by larger companies to connect their internal telephone lines to the PSTN. The capital expenditure and operating costs necessary for a PBX can be substantial. With business VoIP all that is needed is Broadband Internet Access and a router to route each packet based call to the internet. The business VoIP service provider is then responsible for bridging the calls from the internet to their destination, whether that be to another VoIP phone user or the PSTN. This is often referred to as a hosted VoIP or IP PBX solution. All of the technology for handling your calls resides at the business VoIP service provider. You can access and change your VoIP features (e.g. adding numbers, forwarding calls etc) simply by accessing a secure website run by your business VoIP service provider. One of WhichVoIP's most popular hosted VoIP IP PBX providers is Vocalocity. Read all about Vocalocity including a company profile, white papers and customer case studies.

• Business VoIP is a digital packet based system. Therefore numerous Internet phone calls can be made at the same time and can be sent over the same Local Area Network (LAN) that is used for your computer data needs. This is a very cost effective way to make telephone calls.

• The voice packets travel over the internet instead of the PSTN. The internet is not heavily regulated like the PSTN so calls are so cheap to make that many business plans simply charge a monthly fee and that covers all of your calls regardless of their destination.

• Many larger businesses have multiple locations some of which may be in the next state, others could be on the other side of the world. Usually these locations are connected to a company wide data network (Wide Area Network for example). With a Business VoIP system, extension dialing is such that the location is irrelevant. An employee in Seattle can call a colleague in London through a simple 4 digit extension and at no cost. This is because the call is sent over the company's network on the internet rather than through traditional long distance calling. This feature alone can be very attractive to businesses wishing to save money on their phone bills.

• With Business VoIP comes a vast array of features. Receive your faxes and voicemail via email or with a web browser. Conference calling. Caller ID. Call forwarding. Going away on business - take your IP phone or Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) with you and your number goes with you or configure your phone to call-forward. Many more features thrown in as standard.

• All telephone and data administration can be handled by one Information Services (IS) department. This can save a business a considerable amount of money.

• Business VoIP dramatically simplifies portability and installation. Assuming your IP telephone or ATA is configured for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), you can move your phone anywhere and still keep the same phone number since it will receive an IP address dynamically. This is like moving your laptop and still being able to log in to your network. It is estimated that it can cost hundreds of dollars to move a telephone in a regular circuit switched network due to labor costs and the cost of reconfiguring the PBX. These costs are not incurred in a Business VoIP system since the IP network does not care about your location.

There are many Business VoIP service plans available to businesses and each can be broken down into three distinct areas based on the size of the company.

Business VoIP Solution for the Small to Medium sized Business (SMB)

For small to medium sized businesses with between 5 and 100 employees, it is generally more cost effective to select a Business VoIP service provider that is dedicated to this particular market. This is one of the fastest growing areas for Business VoIP and is expected to account for more than 1.7 million lines and $1 billion in market size in 2007 according to Forrester Research.

For this particular Business VoIP market, the VoIP service provider typically installs a voice enabled router that connects to a T1 or T3 line depending on your telephony and data requirements. This can support all of your voice and data needs for your company and provides a Quality of Service (QoS) such that your voice packets get higher priority than your data packets during high traffic times. A large switch connects the router to your Local Area Network (LAN) and any IP based device can then be connected to the switch whether it be a computer, an IP phone, or just an ATA and a regular analog telephone.

One possible Business VoIP solution for small to medium sized businesses is highlighted in the following diagram. Note that additional phone lines and PCs can be added simply by connecting them to the large voice enabled switch.

This type of configuration is often referred to as a hosted VoIP or IP PBX phone system. All of the technology for handling your calls resides in the VoIP service providers network, so any type of adds, moves or changes can be done easily by you through a web browser and a secure login website. This removes the cost of hiring someone to do this.

The features for these plans are extensive. If you need to add an employee, the system is very flexible. Simply add another business VoIP seat (i.e. another phone line) with your web browser, connect your phone to the LAN and you are up and running. No more expensive and time consuming installations to add a telephone line. Likewise, if you cannot make it into your office say due to bad weather simply stay at home, use your own internet broadband connection to login to the secure website for your hosted VoIP PBX and forward your work calls to your home or cell phone.

One of WhichVoIP's most popular hosted VoIP PBX providers is Vocalocity. Read all about Vocalocity including a company profile, white papers and customer case studies.

Note that sometimes a SMB will keep a certain number of regular phone lines or Primary Rate Interfaces (PRI) that connect to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for backup purposes. If you lose power to your building and you do not have some form of backup for your power, you will lose all communication to the outside world. This is one of the main reasons a SMB may consider keeping one or two traditional telephone lines.

Business VoIP Solution for the Small Office and Home Office (SOHO)

The Business VoIP provider plans for small offices and home offices tend to be very similar to the residential VoIP service plans and have similar features. Most VoIP residential providers have one or two business VoIP solutions at a relatively small premium to their respective residential VoIP plans. Extra services are often included such as a toll free number and a dedicated fax line. These plans tend to be cost effective for businesses with less than 5 employees.

The Business VoIP providers give you the same hardware you would get for a residential VoIP plan, this being the Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). This is responsible for converting the analog signals from a regular telephone into a format acceptable for transmission over the internet. The ATA normally handles up to 2 telephone lines but if a fax service is required one of the ports is typically needed for the fax machine since it needs its own dedicated number and phone line.

A typical home office or small business VoIP solution is highlighted in the following diagram. Note that additional phone lines and PCs can be added simply by connecting them to the LAN side of the router.

For small office environments these plans tend to work well and additional phone lines can be purchased at the same monthly rate. However, eventually this expansion will no longer be possible since each phone line requires up to 90 kbits/s of your Broadband bandwidth before even considering your data needs. Note that this depends on the codec selected for voice compression.

For a standard small office Broadband Internet connection (e.g. cable or DSL) this tends to set the maximum limit to about 5 employees and that is with the assumption that not all employees are making a VoIP call at the same time. For businesses with more than 5 employees it is recommended that you sign up for a VoIP Small to Medium sized Business (SMB) plan as described above.

Business VoIP Solution for the Large Business

For this market segment, a large business is considered to be one that has greater than 100 employees.

There is not too much demand from large companies to move to business VoIP solutions at the present time. This is because they have usually already paid a substantial amount of money for their PBX and they have the misconception that they would need to throw away their PBX in order to move to VoIP. However this is not the case and there are many Business VoIP plans that actually make use of the circuit switched PBX.

The Business VoIP service provider adds equipment that converts the circuit switched outputs from the PBX into IP packets and then passes them to a Voice Enabled Router that also handles the company data network. All of the IP packets, voice and data, are then routed to the internet often via T1 or T3 lines. The company may then remove the expensive phone lines or the Primary Rate Interface (PRI) that previously were sent to the PSTN. Typically, large businesses can save over 30% in their monthly telephony costs after switching to a business VoIP solution.

One possible Business VoIP solution for a larger sized business that already has a PBX is highlighted in the following diagram.

The PSTN and telephone lines or PRI can be removed from the system since all of the data and voice now travel over the internet. However, in practice, a reduced number of standard circuit switched phone lines tend to remain connected to the PSTN purely for backup purposes.

Note that for large companies that are moving to a new building or relocating, there is no better time to move to a business VoIP solution. If no PBX is currently owned the setup looks similar to the Small to Medium sized Business (SMB) diagram but on a larger scale.

Business High Speed Data Solutions Explained

Broadband data solutions for businesses come in many different flavors in terms of the physical interface used to transport the data, the data speed available to you and of course the cost.

In this section we explain the different types of broadband data services available to you today to help you determine the most optimum data package for your particular business needs. At this point simply request a quote using this broadband data quote form and we will find the best provider(s) based on your requirements and location.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)

DSL service is a technology for bringing high-bandwidth broadband data service to Small Office, Home Offices (SOHO) and Small to Medium sized Businesses (SMB) over ordinary copper telephone lines. What does this mean? It means that you can get high speed internet access over your traditional phone line. DSL service is known as an "always-on" internet service. This means that when your computer is on you are always connected to the internet. Unlike dial-up service there is no logging on with user name and passwords required. With DSL service all you need to do is plug your PCs into your DSL modem and then from your modem to your normal telephone jack.

With DSL service you can get a broadband speed up to 7.1Mbps (Megabits per second). More typically though, individual connections will provide an internet speed of some where between 768Kbps (Kilobits per second) to 3.0Mbps on the downlink (downloading from the internet to your PC) and anywhere from 128Kbps to 768Kbps on the uplink (uploading from your PC to the internet). Your DSL service broadband speed will depend on the distance that you are from the telephone company Central Office (CO) with a maximum distance of 18,000 feet.

Cable

Cable internet is a technology for bringing high-bandwidth broadband data service to homes and small businesses over your cable TV line. What does this mean? It means that you can get high speed internet access over your existing cable TV connection. Cable is known as an "always-on" internet service. With Cable internet service all you need to do is plug your PC into your Cable Modem and your Cable Modem into your normal cable television outlet on the wall.

Cable internet service is typically offered by the same companies that provide cable TV. The high speed internet access works over the same coaxial cable that the TV signal comes into your home on, but does not effect or interfere with your TV signal. Therefore you can use your internet service and watch TV at the same time without any problems. Typically, for businesses, cable internet service provides you with a maximum of 1.5Mbps to 7Mbps (Megabits per second) of bandwidth (internet speed) on the system for downlink and up to 768Kbps for uplink traffic.

T1

The T1 carrier is the most commonly used digital transmission line for Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMB) in the United States. The bandwidth of a T1 line is 1.544Mbps in each direction. In other words you will get this full dedicated bandwidth in both your uplink and downlink directions. This is significantly higher than DSL or Cable for uplink communication. It is for this reason that it is often used for Data and VoIP traffic. VoIP traffic typically needs around 90Kbps per voice call due to the voice codec so it is easy to see that this can be an area of concern for SMBs considering DSL or cable - it limits the amount of simultaneous calls they can make. In Europe the equivalent transmission is known as E1. This is very similar to T1 except it can run at 2.048Mbps.

One reason many SMBs choose T1 is that they are usually leased from large Telecomm companies and built into the Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a well defined Quality of Service (QoS) guaranteeing that minimal downtime will occur during the lease of the T1. However, as you would expect, a premium is paid for this type of data service.

There are many other forms of T1 that you may come across. Fractional T1 is, as you would expect, a fraction of a full T1. A T1 can be thought of as 24 unique timeslots so when you lease a full T1, you have the ability to use all 24 timeslots (also referred to as DS0s). A fractional T1 gives you access to a specific number of DS0s. The most common rates are 256Kbps and 384Kbps. Obviously you pay a fraction of the cost of a full T1. Yes the speed may be less than DSL or Cable but the QoS is in place. Frame Relay T1 is another form of T1 and uses a packet switched protocol to transfer data across Local Area Networks (LAN) and Wide Area Networks (WAN). Instead of being allocated a fixed amount of bandwidth, Frame-Relay services offer a CIR (Committed Information Rate) at which data is transmitted, in other words an absolute minimum connection speed. Point-to-point T1 offers the best QoS for transmission over a T1. The SLA guarantees maximum throughput at all times and is typically leased by companies who transfer a lot of private files or for corporate Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and WANs.

One final point to note for T1. If you need additional bandwidth simply add more T1 leased lines. Likewise if you decide to add VoIP simply add another T1 line and all of your packetized voice traffic can be delivered over this additional T1 line.

T3

A T3 line is equivalent to 28 T1 lines (see above) at a speed of 45Mbps. Typically you would see large businesses, universities and web hosting companies lease a T3 line due to the large amount of users requiring access to the internet and Wide Area Networks (WAN). The physical medium for a T3 line tends to be fiber-optic cable. Note that T3 lines are high enough speed that it is feasible to pass full screen, full motion video over this interface.

Similar to the T1 carrier, a T3 line can also be sub-divided and is known as fractional-T3. Basically one would lease a fraction of the 45Mbps bandwidth available with a T3 line, obviously at a lower cost.

OC-3 / OC-12 / OC-48

Optical Carrier level 1 (OC-1) is the designation for a Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) with transmission rates of 51.84 Mbps, using fiber optics as the transmission medium. However the most typical SONET rates found in optical networks today are OC-3 (155Mbps), OC-12 (622Mbps) and OC-48 (2.5Gbps). OC-48 will often be used as the long-haul backbone for internet traffic containing everything from regular data and VoIP to streaming video.

Ethernet

Ethernet (IEEE Standard 802.3) tends to be the protocol of choice for LANs inside a business, using twisted pair cables to connect computers in a workplace to the local network and to the internet. These interfaces usually run at either 10Mbps or 100Mbps (referred to as Fast Ethernet).

However fairly recently there has been a push for what is referred to as Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) which provides carrier-class Ethernet between a business and the Internet Service Provider (ISP) over Ethernet. The interface speed for such interfaces is usually one Gigabit (1000Mbps) hence the term Gigabit Ethernet. A point of demarcation is required between the ISP and end user in order to provide end-to-end Service Level Agreements (SLA). This broadband data connection is becoming very popular for businesses in metropolitan areas.

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a technology that is offered by most telephone carriers. It combines voice and digital traffic in a single medium making it possible to offer customers digital data services as well as voice connections through a single "wire" (copper pair) running at a speed of up to 128Kbps. At one time this was very popular for SMBs but with DSL, Cable and T1 services offering higher speed broadband access for voice and data traffic ISDN popularity has been steadily declining over recent years.

Satellite

At one time high speed broadband access by satellite required access to a phone line for uplink data (e.g. requesting a web page) and then the fast path would be over the air for downlink data. This worked well since usually downlink was where you needed the high speed traffic. However this only really applied to home users and very small offices. SMBs and larger businesses would not consider such a service as they need faster uplink data paths too for transferring data to other offices over their WAN.

Recently technology breakthroughs allowed satellite dishes on the ground to actually transmit to satellites orbiting the earth, providing high speed uplink traffic as well as downlink traffic. When you surf to a Web page the Southern-facing satellite dish mounted on your home sends a signal to an orbiting satellite. This signal is bounced off the satellite and back down to a central operating center which then finds your requested data on the Internet and sends it back to the orbiting satellite which in turn sends it to the house's satellite receiver. This is performed at a speed comparable to DSL.

A word of caution on satellite broadband access. If you plan to pass voice over this type of medium you are likely to be very disappointed. The latencies involved are such that the delay in your speech will be very apparent!

Hosted IP PBX

This is VoIP related but since the voice calls are packetized and sent over DSL/Cable/T1/T3/OCx interfaces it is worth mentioning.

A hosted IP PBX is an IP-based management service located at your VoIP service providers network operations center. The functions associated with a hosted IP PBX service are similar to those of hardware PBX systems installed at your business site. The main difference is that your company is not responsible for buying, installing, or maintaining any of the PBX equipment. It is all maintained and upgraded by the service provider thus saving your business significant money in terms of capital expenditure and of course administration costs since you do not need to pay an IT person to maintain your own PBX.

What are some of the advantages of a hosted IP PBX?
- It is scalable so your business can expand or contract at any time.
- The PBX is configurable so you can easily add users and modify features through a secure internet site.
- The equipment is usually made by high caliber companies like Cisco Systems and is therefore very reliable.
- It has many productivity enhancing features such as the ability to listen to voicemails from a PC, call forwarding, individual fax numbers for each user and many more.

One of WhichVoIP's most popular hosted VoIP IP PBX providers is Vocalocity. Read all about Vocalocity including a company profile, white papers and customer case studies.