VOIP has been around for a number of years now, but before the dawn of broadband the potential applications were limited, however this has now changed.

For example a company has two offices, every time someone in office one wants to call office two a local rate call is made. This call cost on average £0.0395 per minute in peak rate. If the average total call time was three hours per day this would total £7.11 per day and the monthly total would be £142.20 and this example is only based on three hours per day and one single line.

The Average cost of a business broadband subscription is around £60, this is a fixed monthly charge regardless of how much you use it. If all the calls between the two sites were sent across the internet using a broadband connection at both offices the total cost would be only £120 and this wouldn’t remain the same even if the line was in constant use.

The broadband connection can be configured at both offices to provide any required local networks with high speed internet which means you are able to make further savings.

Sounding too good to be true, there is more.....

The system can be integrated into virtually any existing telephone exchange (PBX), this means people in office one are able to use your existing telephone exchange to transfer and make calls to the other office as if the person they had wished to call was sitting in the next room.

In addition office two can call into office one and then out to the rest of the world using the telephone exchange at office one, this greatly reduces running costs as you only have one bill for outgoing telephone calls.

By using ADSL as your chosen broadband service, you are able to use the line for incoming faxes at the same as using the broadband connection, this reduces the number of required lines at office two from which provide telephone, internet and incoming or outgoing fax services down to just one single line.

Many homes now have high speed internet connections, with VOIP any worker who has this service can be given a VOIP telephone which they simply plug into a RJ45 (network socket) on their home internet connection. Then they would be able to receive and make calls to the office and make calls out to the rest of the world using the existing telephone exchange or telephone lines in your main office. This means an employee can work from home all day making calls without introducing charges you wouldn’t have paid if they had been in the office.

This system also means that if you have a requirement for a 24 hours or out of hours support number you can have a phone at home that rings when no ones there at the office.

The simple answer is yes, you probably use a VOIP telephone exchange or talk across a VOIP network everyday and don’t realise it, mostly all calls made internationally now are transported across VOIP systems.

Virtually all modern call centres based in other countries who support the UK are VOIP and the call is sent from its country of origin over the internet and onto the UK telephone network from within the UK.

With VOIP you only need to pay an initial cost for the hardware and required codec licences, however once you have paid that charge you only pay for the broadband subscription.

Obviously any calls make out through existing telephone exchanges using a VOIP solution will be charged at the normal rates given by your existing Telephone provider.

Unfortunately many existing providers of telephone exchanges are being slow to realise the potential of VOIP systems, this is mainly because it can be a complicated process to learn and understand the principles behind the internet technologies that make the system work.

This is why Opem Solutions, with over 10 years experience in internet, communication systems and Audio Production Opem Solutions offer one of the best VOIP services around.