How VoIP differs from your "normal" phone line....

In the last blog I mentioned VoIP uses the internet to make / receive telephone calls. This has many interesting ramifications that make VoIP useful for business continuity.

It is becoming well known that making calls over the internet can be cheaper and indeed free if made from one PC to another. This is because the call doesn't need to route through a public telephony provider's network as with regular telephony.

However, if a call is routed to the a recipient who uses regular telephony, the call will have to "break out" of VoIP into the public telephony network.

Conversely, if a call is originated from the public network and destined to a VoIP user, the call needs to "break in" to the VoIP network.

Confused? It's like starting a journey by train and continuing it by road. Start on VoIP, end on the public network and visa versa.

Now here's the big difference - a user can login to a VoIP account where ever they have a suitable internet connection. Calls will be delivered to where they are logged in.

More on this in the next blog....

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What is Voice over IP?

Simply put a method of making and receiving calls through a data network. The "IP" refers to "Internet Protocol" and is a techy phenomenon describing how computer data is represented at a low level.

All you really need to remember is whichever route the data you send / receive through email and the internet etc is the same route voice data takes. It's a bit like taking a tree, chopping it up into logs, putting it onto several trucks and driving it to point B.

The logs are voice and the trucks are IP packets. When transported to point B they are reconstructed to form the message from the speaker and visa versa.

Next we'll move on to how voice traffic through VoIP relates to the "normal" voice network. The differences make business continuity uses quite attractive.

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Using Voice over IP for business continuity and disaster recovery

The great thing about internet telephony or Voice Over IP (VOIP) is the VOIP phones need only be connected to the internet to receive a call.

If I login to my account at home, that's where I reeive and make calls, if I login at work I receive and make calls at work. This is true for whichever location I decided to login from.

There are of course different ways to configure a VOIP service and not all configurations would enable the above benefits to be realised. In the next few blogs we'll be helping you to understand the type of VOIP service you'll need for business continuity and disaster recovery purposes.


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Business continuity: voice messages sent as emails?

Taking voice messages isn't a good way to handle incoming calls as most callers won't leave a message. However, using 08XX numbers it is possible to receive voice messages as attachments to emails.

At least this would provide some way of operating if all other means of receiving communication via your phone system fails.

How does this work?

The caller is prompted to leave a message after his 0870, 0845 (etc) number has been dialled. The recorded message is then sent as an email attachment to an email address you choose.

As mentioned above this would be a last resort. Diverting calls to another number would be the better option.

Next we'll look at how you can operate your phone system as normal using voice over IP.

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