Best VoIP Service Elk Grove

How To Find Best VoIP Service Partner?

If you’re an SMB implementing a VoIP service, then your choice of VoIP service partner will probably play a key role in making it a success. They will certainly be vital to make sure your VoIP service performs to your expectations. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to choosing the best VoIP service partner in Elk Grove.

Requirements To Choose Best VoIP Service

1. Make your network capacity your top priority

When you switch from the traditional telephone network to VoIP, you transfer the communications load from dedicated hardware to your network and the internet. If you just want VoIP for audio (and faxes), then a minimum connection speed of 0.1Mbps is reasonable. If you want to implement video-calling, then your absolute floor would be 0.3Mbps and that would only be enough for a low-quality webcam.

This means that most SMBs are likely to need to upgrade their network capacity significantly before they can move ahead with VoIP. If you’re still running your own data center and want to own and manage your infrastructure, then you could run the upgrade process concurrently with the process of selecting a VoIP service partner. Most SMBs, however, are more likely to be looking at a managed hosting arrangement. This means either a managed hosting service plus a VoIP service or a VoIP service that includes managed to host.

Organizing the services individually can give you more control, but just putting everything in the hands of one vendor gives you more convenience.

2. Decide what services you need/want and when

Realistically, you only need to know what you need/want to happen for the initial implementation. You can then build on this incrementally as you become more familiar with VoIP and what it can offer. If, however, you already have at least some idea of where you’d like to go with VoIP, then it can be helpful to clarify it as much as possible right at the start of the proceedings as it may influence your choice of VoIP service partner.

For clarity, VoIP services are roughly classed into four main groups – SMB services, enterprise services, contact centers, and Unified Communications. Some VoIP service vendors can work across all of these sectors, while others specialize. VoIP service vendors who focus on the SMB market will almost certainly be capable of supporting popular, mainstream services (such as conference-calling, call-recording, and video-calling). If, however, you’re looking to go much beyond this, then your choice of VoIP service vendor may be more limited.

3. A note on Fax over IP

Technically Fax over IP (also known as fax or virtual fax)VoIP implementation is a great opportunity to switch them out, for faxes is different from VoIP, but companies that still have fax machines often implement Fax over IP together with VoIP and most VoIP vendors will support it. Some vendors specialize in Fax over IP, although these days that’s increasingly rare.

If you are still using traditional fax machines, then a VoIP implementation is a great opportunity to switch them out, for efaxes. The level of reliability and security they offer now is enough for just about all businesses, even those in regulated industries. They are arguably more secure than regular faxes because they are printed on demanda major win in some companies. This means that they aren’t going to go missing from the fax machine or be read by people who shouldn’t have access to them.

Fax over IP can generate significant savings on both calling costs and printing costs but, these days, perhaps the biggest win is the ability to reclaim valuable office space.

4. Decide what endpoints you need and whether you want them bundled with your contract

At present, you have a choice between softphones and VoIP handsets. Softphones are generally very affordable, they may well be provided for free with a VoIP service package. They save on desk space, which can be a major win for some companies, but they do need a decent amount of screen real estate.  

One of the key points to remember about softphones is that they’re very rarely used in isolation. Generally, people need to see the softphone and other apps at the same time. Otherwise, it can become very frustrating trying to toggle between them. It’s also very likely that softphone users will need headsets. This adds to the costs and, of course, means that you need a place to put the headsets when they’re out of use.

VoIP handsets, by contrast, take up desk space rather than screen space, although they are available in cordless formats if your staff need to use them on the move. You can buy them upfront yourself or look for a VoIP service contract that includes them (or a combination of both).

If you’d like to speak to one of the best VoIP service partners in Elk Grove, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.