Instead of hearing a busy signal or being put on hold (by your busy human receptionist), callers will listen to a message and choose an option for how they’d like to proceed.Ĭreate a positive call-forwarding experience. When your dedicated receptionist can’t take a call, you can program your VoIP Virtual Receptionist to take over. Your VoIP Virtual Receptionist is the gateway to your small business and allows you to: When setting up your small business VoIP system, you’ll use a Wi-Fi signal to connect your analog and digital phones. Wi-Fi is a radio wave technology that connects devices to the internet without the need for cables.
You’ll connect your IP phone units to the internet with an ethernet cable. It’s handy to understand these terms, as they both play an important role in business VoIP.Įthernet is the internet delivery system within a Local Area Network (LAN)-as in the network of computers and devices in a space, such as your office.
Companies then pay a monthly fee to use the service. Rather than a business having an on-premises PBX, a business VoIP service provider manages the PBX in the cloud. VoIP PBX, also known as Hosted PBX, is a cloud-based phone network. As the name suggests, it is a company’s private phone network. VoIP has its fair share of technical terms, so let’s narrow them down to a few essential terms.
Business VoIP Basics to get you started.Īny IT or tech industry professional will tell you that tech-speak (and acronyms!) are a way of life in the tech world. When you make a call, the VoIP service provider routes the voice data packets between you and the other caller-all within a split second. VoIP Calls are made on your phone (connected to the internet with a network cable) or via computer using an app. If you’ve used providers like Ooma, Skype or Zoom for business phone calls, you’ve used VoIP! Your digital voice data are then transmitted over the internet (similar to sending an email). VoIP phones (also known as Internet phones and IP phones) work by turning your voice into data (also called data packets).
Unlike landline phones that require add-ons for phone features (at an additional cost), modern business VoIP systems come with an array of popular communication features already built-in. While IP capabilities have been around for several decades, business VoIP services has advanced in recent years, due to phone innovation and faster internet speeds. VoIP technology, on the other hand, has changed how businesses communicate. By today’s standards, the landline phone technology is limited, allowing users to make and receive voice-only calls. Landline phones-which have not changed much since the beginning of the twentieth century-require an infrastructure of wiring and exchange hardware. The most significant difference between VoIP and landline phones lies in technology. Using a web page and login, you can customize the features, such as creating a Virtual Receptionist welcome message or adding new users. Once your system is connected, you can make and receive VoIP calls.
A small base unit connects your phone to the internet. Voice over Internet Protocol ( VoIP) phones use the internet to make and receive phone calls.