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When thinking of VoIP service provider’s two names that spring to mind are Vonage and Skype. However these two services are targeted at the residential market and when looking for a VoIP service suitable for a large business, especially when you begin considering VoIP PBX systems then neither Vonage nor Skype have the technology or capacity to serve your business.

Vonage do run business packages aimed for the small business and in these instances their VoIP services are satisfactory allowing the small business to save money by routing their calls through the internet. However the Vonage VoIP business service is run through a single line and does not provide the features that a larger business may need such as call transfers, multiple extensions, administrative functions and the other more advanced features of a larger VoIP PBX system.

If you are looking for a VoIP service providor for your large business then their are a huge number of VoIP service providers available. Here is an extensive list broken down by country that can be found at VoIP Info’s List of Business VoIP Service Providers. As you can see the list is very extensive and the services that each company offer can vary considerably.

Standard VoIP Business Services include the ability to keep the current phone numbers for your company, being able to continue to use your existing phone handsets, unlimited local and long distance calling including in fees, cheap international rates, and a hosted PBX system with a web portal. For larger business switching to a VoIP service provider results in up to an 80% saving in telephone communication costs within the business.

Communication over a VoIP system compared to a regular PSTN phone system can be very beneficial to your business as it gives more freedom and can save your business money. VoIP systems are of course digital compared to the traditional landline analog systems we are used too. When talking through a VoIP phone your voice is converted into an electronic signal which is broken down into compressed packets and routed through the internet. At the receiving end the VoIP packets are reassembled and decompressed by the phone hardware and software turning them back into audible frequencies.

With this in mind a VoIP phone is a little more complicated than your regular telephone although the difference in pricing is very little. However when considering a VoIP phone to be used in a business environment there are obviously more things to consider and the phones generally need to have more advanced features and technology to integrate into the business environment.

A few business VOIP phone brand examples are TalkSwitch, Avaya (as pictured above) and Packet8. One of the main features that is often a requirement of business VoIP phones is that they have the ability to communicate both over VoIP and the traditional landline system. For example in some VoIP telephone systems calls to and from external numbers will be done through the traditional landline network but for calls between remote offices within a company the VoIP phone system uses the businesses broadband connection.

In some cases the need for a VoIP business phone is not needed at all since you can use a VoIP exchange box which handles the VoIP side of things and sends a normal signal to your regular phone. This can be used on a small scale with a single phone or in a large VoIP PBX system.

If you’re already thinking about turning your business over to an IP Telephony system then you are definitely thinking the right way. Uptake of VoIP telephony has really taken off in the past few years as businesses large and small have realized the cost saving benefits of a VoIP system not to mention some of the advantages that a large VoIP business system can have.

IP Telephony basically takes advantage of making cheap calls over the internet. Rather than the traditional PSTN analog landline systems VoIP is completely digital. Explained in the simplest way IP Telephony consists of all audio being converted into digital packets which are encrypted and sent through the internet to be unpackaged at the other end. To the end user everything feels pretty much the same as a regular telephone system.

Small and large businesses need to be aware that IP telephony does take up bandwidth, its important to be aware of your bandwidth usage in your company to ensure that you have sufficient resources to run an IP telephony system without seeing any degradation in performance.

It must be explained that when considering an IP Telephony system for a larger corporation that wishes to use a complex VoIP PBX system (private branch exchange) that you will be required to merge both regular analog voice and data networks into a single converged network. This will therefore mean there will be some changes to your existing IT operations and so it is important to plan properly. Entrepreneur.com has a nice article about large businesses switching to an IP Telephony system with details on the PDIO methodology (planning, design, implementation, operation and optimization) thoroughly explained.

Every business has its own needs when it comes to communication and deciding on a VoIP system that is right for your business is not always straight forward. In the simplest form a VoIP system for a small business would simply be moving from a traditional landline network to an IP telephony system in order to save money. However on a larger scale a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) network integrated with VoIP technology would be more suitable for a big corporate company with many remote offices.

PBX VoIP phone systems create an all in one phone system that privately connects remote business locations together into a single private VoIP network. Traditional PBX systems were introduced to bring freedom and save the business money so that they did not have to route all calls through third party telephone carriers.

VoIP PBX systems for business are even more powerful than the traditional PSTN PBX system. There is no need for a receptionist to route calls to the correct location as a VoIP system can reroute all calls to different offices, cell phones and other locations. Other features include call waiting, caller identification, three way calling, conference calling, and more.

VoIP PBX systems in themselves are far more cost efficient for businesses and have a much lower cost of entry. All large businesses should consider switching to a VoIP PBX system as the cost saving can be dramatic not to mention the additional features that a VoIP system has to offer.

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