Communication is a critical component to the success of any business, and ensuring that your communications system remains up and running at all times is of utmost importance.
VoIP communication and information technology are fast becoming a must in the corporate and business enterprises of today’s market. The world and its industries are progressing, functioning and overpowering each other at amazing speed. Today’s technology is so powerful that a human brain is unable to keep up with the incredible feats accomplished by different programs available. If a person writes a letter in America to their spouse in China, the letter is received instantly via email. Twenty years ago, there would have been no option but to send by post, telegram, or pay a fortune and send it via a courier company. In the past, technology moved, but not at speed. Twenty years ago, a telegram was incomprehensibly quick; a pioneer of science and the progression of the world’s technological genius. A telegram used in today’s business would lose clients due to being slow.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) often comprises a substantial portion of the budget for many businesses, a large part of which goes to paying the wages of support staff. Larger businesses may need to employ a full-time, in-house team to support all their ICT services, including VoIP communications systems.
However, smaller businesses have limited budgets and few ICT-related tasks to justify a full-time or even a part-time ICT position. It’s more difficult for these businesses to support their communications systems without wasting valuable and often scarce resources.
The importance of communication
Two essential components that determine the reliability of any VoIP communications system are the technology itself and the network design. Of course, modern VoIP systems have redundancy and robustness built in; however, people are another vital component of ensuring reliability. Specifically, we’re referring to the technical personnel who respond to problems, questions, issues and concerns.
A Solution with Results
What is the solution for the choice between expenses or bad technology? Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) is technology which enables users to transmit information over a broadband internet connection. Basically put, VoIP allows users to call, email, fax, conference call and much more over a high-speed internet connection. The best part? Since the lines used are internet connections, the rates payable are extremely reasonable.
For corporate and business enterprises, staying at the helm of new technology related to communication and information is paramount to their success. If two companies are competing in an aggressive market, it is obvious that the company to deliver solutions on a faster scale will be the more successful. Keeping ahead of the times in terms of current events, new methods and practices is also a fundamental part of the success behind a company. Communication technology allows this success to happen, by delivering the information quickly and in time for planning and reaction. The catch 22 which faces businesses and corporations however, is having to pay exorbitant rates and fees for premium technology. Emails, faxes, high speed internet connection, international phone calls, video conferencing and other aspects of communication in a modern company are needed without question, yet manage to build up quite a bill of expenses.
Companies and corporations using VoIP services and internet protocol telephony have the ability to keep up with current trends in information and communication technology and can also keep up to speed with competing companies. As previously mentioned, every second counts in the corporate environment, especially concerning competing markets. VoIP allows companies to be ahead of their game, finding information, making communication and basically being able to run their business more efficiently.
ICT support personnel for VoIP
Personnel that support your VoIP systems can take various forms, such as:
- In-house staff: These are professionals you’ve hired as full-time or part-time employees of your business. They are located physically within the office.
- Contracted technical support: This is a third-party company or individual that is hired on contract to respond to specific problems within a particular service level agreement (SLA). Assistance can be delivered via the telephone, remotely, or on-site, depending upon the agreement.
- VoIP provider technical support: All VoIP providers deliver some level of technical support as part of their offerings. Whether you purchase a cloud-based subscription or an on-premises VoIP solution, the provider will offer technical support.
VoIP solution types
There are three main types of VoIP solutions that providers offer.
- On-premises deployments: These use either a physical server with IP telephony software running a SIP server or an IP PBX appliance device. These require physical rack space within the business and network resources to connect to local and remote users.
- VoIP server virtualization: This uses system virtualization technologies to deploy VoIP servers as virtual machines (VMs). This makes deployment much easier than on-premises deployments because you can deploy on a local VM infrastructure or a VM hosting service in the cloud using a service such as Azure or AWS.
- Cloud-based VoIP services: are delivered using off-premises infrastructure completely managed and maintained by the provider. Your organization doesn’t need to deal with any configuration, setup or maintenance of the servers. VoIP endpoints connect to the service via the internet.
Note that while the choice of solution type impacts the administration and management of the system, the service remains virtually identical from the user’s point of view.
Implications
For small and medium-sized businesses, combining a cloud-based VoIP service with provider-offered technical support is normally the best option. For a low monthly cost, you cover all your needs. Many cloud-based providers offer different levels of support depending on the package you choose. You can pay a little extra to include additional support, both remote and on-site (if offered).
As the number of users in your business increases to dozens or hundreds, such a solution becomes less cost-effective, and moving to a VoIP server virtualization solution may be preferable. This will increase the administrative overhead, which, in turn, may require additional support beyond what the VoIP provider is willing to provide. Depending on your organization’s size, it may be beneficial to either contract out such support or get an in-house person on your team.
For larger entities with hundreds or even thousands of users, on-premises deployment is the most cost-effective solution. The initial investment may be comparatively large, but the cost is quickly recovered due to excellent ROI. To support such a service, either contracted or in-house technical support is a must, with the latter being the preferred choice.
Conclusion
Placing the different support structure options within the context of the size of the enterprise, the type of VoIP service used, and the level of tech support required helps businesses and organizations balance their unified communications needs against the cost of supporting them.
