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The Complete Guide To VoIP Phone Systems

The award-winning experts at Amvia have compiled the complete business guide to VoIP phone systems. This guide covers how phone systems work, how much they cost, what factors impact cost, the best business VoIP phone systems, which providers have the best ratings, functionality, and much, much, more. If you wish, you can navigate to the relevant sections using the shortcuts below.

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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO VOIP PHONE SYSTEMS_ VOICE OVER IP

Amvia VoIP Services

We know that clear, reliable and affordable voice calls are essential to the success of your business. That’s why we offer AmviaVoice, a hosted VoIP phone system with 5000 minutes per user, from the leading VoIP platform providers. AmviaVoice allows you – for the first time – to make a UK VoIP Provider comparison of the leading business VoIP platforms, including BT VoIP, and find the best service and provider that meets all your business needs.

Enhanced User Experience

Traditional private branch exchange (PBX) services require significant upfront and maintenance costs that simply aren’t a part of VoIP systems. In fact, with our VoIP services, you can enjoy standard telephony features, as well as a fully unified and comprehensive communication system, for a low-cost monthly charge.

In addition to reliable connections, you’ll also have access to video conferencing, call centre services, unified messaging, and much more. With cloud-based phone systems, you can have enough flexibility to support one or several locations.

To enjoy flexible phone system benefits that will grow with your business, all you need is an internet connection, a VoIP phone line, a compatible desk phone, and a VoIP subscription.

What Is A VoIP Phone System?

VoIP stands for voice over internet protocol. VoIP is a modern digital way to handle voice calls over a data link. Simply put, VoIP allows your business to make calls over the internet. Well-known examples of VoIP include FaceTime, Skype and WhatsApp.

VoIP gives your business the benefit of making lower cost calls over the internet. Using voice over IP, your business can speak with other offices, home workers, even internationally – free of charge (as part of your bundle).

For your employees, using VoIP to make a business call couldn’t be more straightforward – they can dial a number and make calls as normal. In fact, they won't be able to tell the difference between a VoIP call and a call over a traditional landline.

IP Telephony

IP telephony is being rapidly adopted by businesses for many reasons; mainly, lower cost calls, more features usually only found on expensive PBX phone systems, and the ability to appear you are in the office wherever you are working.

VoIP in its infancy was seen as an unreliable means of communication, fraught by calls dropping and intermittent sound quality. This meant that the traditional landline was preferred as a consistent, reliable way of making business phone calls.

However, modern VoIP technology and faster internet speeds now mean that not only does VoIP call quality surpass PSTN phone calls, but the additional benefits of using VoIP in your business are significant also.

If you run a business, a BT VoIP phone will benefit you in many ways, including lower costs, more flexibility, conference calling, and many other features such as voicemail to email conversion.

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How does a VoIP phone system work?

Traditional business phone systems use landlines (also known as ISDN or PSTN) to make calls. VoIP phone systems use your internet connection to make these calls.

How VoIP Works

Voice calls are converted into data packets, the calls are then sent over the internet to a desktop VoIP phone, a mobile phone, or a softphone application on a computer.

When you use VoIP, your calls only pass over the data network. This reduces costs as making calls over the internet are free (as part of your call bundle). Additionally, as the call is digitised into data, the call can be treated in a feature-rich way, eg, voicemails can be converted to email or routed to your mobile phone over wifi.

What are the benefits of a VoIP phone system?

Lower costs, increased flexibility & functionality

Answer calls anywhere as if you were in the office. The monthly cost of operating a business VoIP system is significantly lower than a traditional business phone system. Calls are cheaper, line rental is eliminated and management costs are far lower.

Efficiency

VoIP system calls are free over the internet as part of your call bundle. Additionally, they are low bandwidth – only using around 100 Kbps of your internet to make a call.

DDI or extensions involve expensive ISDN channels; with IP telephony, DDIs are a standard feature with no additional charge.

Use voice recognition so that your employees can search and locate customer data fast.

Flexibility

New phone extensions can be delivered in minutes instead of weeks. You can work from home and appear to be answering your phone or mobile in the office using your office number.

You can use mobile apps or softphone PC clients when working remotely, and operate as if you were in your office.

Continuity

In the event of an outage, meaning your office loses internet, your service can be re-routed to alternative offices, to mobile phones or to a temporary message service.

Remote workers are better connected to phone lists and other office-based workers.

Meet all of your inbound
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Quickly and efficiently build the materials you need to support your
inbound marketing strategy. Drag and drop building blocks including
testimonials, forms, calls-to-action, and more.

Call Recording

Your business IP phone system will offer a number of call recording options out of the box. All call recordings can be immediately backed up to cloud storage.

Retain Your Number

Moving to VoIP doesn't mean your business has to get a new phone number. You can keep your number and still benefit from the lower costs, increased flexibility and various other features IP telephony offers.

International Calling

International calls are highly cost-effective with voice over IP. In fact, calling international offices on your network is free. You can add international call minutes for off-net locations from as little as 1p/min.

Call Forwarding

Enable call forwarding with VoIP to allow your business to redirect calls to the right person first time. Ensure all calls are answered – and swiftly – by allowing your workers to forward incoming calls to their desk phone, mobile phone or PC soft client.

Voicemail Management

Any message left for your office or employees on their DDI can be sent via email or text message to a mobile phone. This allows your employees to listen to messages anywhere and in the most efficient and convenient manner.

Fax To Email

Fax to email over VoIP allows your employees to fax out and receive faxes over the IP network.

VoIP Desk Phones

When you upgrade your business phone system, you'll probably upgrade your office phone handsets too. Polycom IP-enabled handsets are specifically designed to optimise call quality and are available in desktop, conference and wireless options.

Equipment Choices

Alternatively, you can use a VoIP adaptor to enable you to use your existing analogue phones.

There is a multitude of VoIP phone system options we can guide you through from brands such as Polycom, Snom, Yealink, Netgear, Gigaset, Sennheiser and Cisco.

Software Phones

Software phones or softphones are installed on your PC, mobile phone or tablet. The software enables your device to function as a VoIP phone and is integrated with your computing device.

Softphones

The software provides your device with a call pad, phone book, chat window and numerous other advanced features including HD video conferencing, HD call recording and presence.

Mobile VoIP Client

Mobile phone VoIP clients are apps that are installed on your mobile device. Mobile clients work in a similar way to a softphone.

VoIP On Your Mobile

Mobile clients enable you to use your VoIP phone system from a mobile device just as if you were in the office using a hardware VoIP phone.

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Fibre, ethernet or broadband internet access

In order to operate effectively, your business VoIP service will need a high-quality internet connection.

Latency, Packet-Loss & Jitter

It’s important to consider business-grade services that have guarantees on latency, packet loss and jitter, especially if you have an office with 10 users or more.

How much bandwidth does a VoIP phone system use?

On average, you should allocate 100 Kbps of bandwidth, per concurrent user, on your VoIP phone system.

100 Kbps Per Call

The exact amount of bandwidth each VoIP call uses is dependant on the type of voice over IP phone system you choose to use. Nevertheless, there is a rough rule of thumb which is that each concurrent call requires 100 Kbps of upload and 100 Kbps of download per call.

If you have a requirement for 15 concurrent calls, you should allocate a minimum of 100 Kbps x 15 = 1.5Mbps of upload and download bandwidth to support this volume of calls.

How much does a VoIP phone system cost?

Typically, a business VoIP phone system costs around £1000–1500 of upfront investment. This is for the purchase of desktop phones and associated hardware. The monthly ongoing cost ranges from £100-£150/month for 10–15 users over a 36-month contract.

Total cost of ownership is around £10/month per user

The initial investment can often be spread over the term of the contract. If you were to spread the initial investment, the per-user cost averages out at £20/user/month.

These prices include 5000 minutes per user to UK landline, UK mobile and 03 numbers.