In traditional telephony, most people are used to seeing telephone lines that reach telephone exchanges (or PBX for its acronym in English of Private Branch EXchange), to which internal extension phones are connected, using cables. Traditional telephone lines are analog (eg one cable for each telephone line) or digital (eg 30 telephone lines that reach the central through a radio-modem via a digital antenna). In turn, it is common to know that faxes arrive by telephone and are printed on paper using a device dedicated to that. Traditional switchboards can also have a voice mailbox system where messages are left that are then heard by calling a specific extension, as well as a voice menu to connect us to internal departments.
The above is typical of a normal telephone exchange or PBX in small or medium-sized companies or institutions.
Now, thanks to the use of networks and the existence of the Internet, there is a technology called VoIP (Voice over IP) through which it is possible to convert the voice of the sender into a digital data package that travels to the receiver to become audible again there.
With VoIP technology, the new telephone exchanges are based on the use of Servers (computers) to which electronic cards are inserted that allow connecting any type of telephone line (analog, digital or even VoIP type over the Internet) regardless of the various telephone operators that are contracted. In fact, by making use of telephone lines based on VoIP technology, it is possible to contract telephone operators from other countries (since it is not necessary for the central to connect with them through a cable) via the Internet.
As for the internal telephone extensions, VoIP telephones do not require the typical telephone cables where one cable for each extension reaches the control panel, but rather they are connected to the same cable of the local area network (Ethernet) that is used on a workstation computer. This means that all extensions reach the telephone exchange through a single network cable.
VoIP phones can be physical (hardware) phones called hardphones or software phones (installed on users' own computers) called softphones. Hardphones are of various types and can be very simple or have multiple lines or functional buttons, even having video (video-telephones). Softphones require the use of headphones with a microphone connected to the user's computer (headset) and are very comfortable since it is not necessary to use your hands to grasp the headset. Softphones also allow managing the database of your contacts with which it is possible to make calls with a single click, and there are also video-softphones.
The operating costs of telephone calls from voip exchanges can be very cheap for a number of reasons.
In the first place, when a user dials a telephone number, the central can analyze the pattern of numbers and take the call through the most convenient telephone line according to the operators' rates. These operators can be traditional telephony, or cellular telephony or even VoIP telephony located in other countries. If the call is to another country, many times the rates of foreign operators are significantly cheaper than the rates of operators in our country.
Second, thanks to the use of the Internet, it is possible to have telephone extensions of the central office in remote offices; that is, the telephone exchange can be in the main headquarters of the company while in remote offices that are small only hardphones or softphones are placed that communicate through the headquarters of the main headquarters. If the remote office has many users then it is possible to place another voip switchboard that connects to the voip switchboard of the main office in such a way that calls between both switchboards travel over the Internet using extensions without requiring to call external operators' phone lines.This is a great advantage since the internal calls of the company or institution have a zero cost since they do not travel through traditional telephony (they only require that the sender and receiver be connected to the Internet).
The use of mobile devices grows day by day. The good news is that the main mobile devices (smartphones - smartphones, or tablets) can make use of applications that handle softphones in such a way that with a Wi-Fi or cellular connection (3G or 4G) you can have the telephone extension of your office from anywhere in the world !!.
Because telephone exchanges are actually server-type computers, other characteristics by which VoIP technology destroys the concepts of traditional telephony are the following:
When someone calls you and you are not in your office, the message is recorded and converted into an audio file that the control panel automatically sends you to your email. When the control panel detects that the sender is a fax, it scans the pages, converts them into PDF and sends it to you as an attached document by email. If your organization has remotely located staff (eg vendors in various geographic areas), it is possible to make audio conferences with everyone's participation at zero cost (via Internet). To restrict calls to national or international telephones, it is possible to assign a password for each user in such a way that only those who are authorized to do so can make such calls. The reporting system for incoming and outgoing calls is very detailed and can be managed via the web or exported to Excel or PDF.It is possible to handle re-routing of calls based on company work hours.If you have a Customer Support Center with multiple operators, it is possible to transfer calls to them based on various criteria and manage call queues. By making use of databases, it is possible to develop special software applications to provide rates or any other valuable information to users over the telephone using the telephone keypad.
As you can see, VoIP technology is wonderful and it can help your business be more efficient and productive at lower operating costs. Accomplish this by contacting the experts in the field.
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