When people think of VoIP, most of the time the first thing that comes to mind is free long distance.
This is just one of the perks, and not the biggest value-add perk. Most companies are rolling out VoIP to reduce infrastructure costs. For example, if you are moving into new office space, it is much cheaper to only wire the building for network cable and use the same cabling for voice. Also, since the back end infrastructure is the same as data network, it reduces your support costs.
You may actually be using VoIP and not know it. Take the example of a company called Cbeyond, they provide phone service just like your plain old telephone service, but in reality all they provide is a data connection and have the technology in place to use the same line for voice. This reduces Cbeyond’s cost and they are able to lay other services on top of the data circuit.
Similarly, if you enable power over ethernet (POE) to power your phone end points, you can use the same POE to power your surveillance cameras, wireless access points, and other network devices.
In my mind, a big advantage for a small business to go the VoIP way is to allow seamless access for users to voice services. So if someone calls your main number, and they punch in a certain extension, it doesn’t matter if the person at that extension is at the main office, at a branch office or on a sales trip taking the call in their hotel room.
VoIP also brings unified messaging to the table. Since voice is travelling over the data network, next logical extension is to merge digital (email, fax) and analog (voice) communications. So now your inbox can literally be your universal inbox with all your voice messages, faxes and email!
