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Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voip Small and medium businesses (SMB) often feel confused by the multiple and complex range of VoIP solutions. Despite all the promise of VoIP’s projected toll cost savings, productivity improvements, and a more professional market presence, SMB’s continue to struggle discerning which solution is best for them. Over the past few years, an increasing number of VoIP solutions have come to market that are aimed at the SMB segment. Yet, most SMBs are unable to evaluate and decide which VoIP solution is best for them – that’s where North Star comes in! VoIP is predicated on the concept of convergence. By that we mean
the ability to utilize your existing data infrastructure to support
voice services, as well. Combining voice services with your data resources
(cabling, data switches, carrier circuit services, etc.) allows you
to eliminate otherwise necessary expenditures.
With promises of pain-free setup and maintenance, reduced toll costs and minimal customer involvement, hosted VoIP telephony continues to win favor among businesses. To make a short story long, Hosted VoIP means that the mystery box located in your phone closet that provides all of your call routing features and voice-mail no longer takes up space on your site. And, that’s OK. You don’t know how it works anyway and are probably tired of paying your Telco vendor exorbitant fees to make even the slightest change! Simply put, Hosted VoIP is very similar to your home telephone service. Instead of you having a telephone system at your house that manages voice-mail, call-waiting, call forwarding, etc., the voice carrier provides these services in an outsourced service offering, with the cost of these offerings spread out over several businesses. You can pick and choose the features you like and leave the management, maintenance and upgrades of the telephone system up to them. To learn more about Covad’s Hosted Telephony Solution, click the link below for a brief overview:
For those businesses that need the ability to design and implement a solution specific to their needs, while at the same time taking advantage of the benefits inherent in VoIP technology, total ownership and control of your telephone system makes sense. While Premise VoIP is similar in nature to a traditional premise telephone system, Premise VoIP gives you the added advantage of convergence and the flexibility to incorporate voice solutions specific to your business requirements. In other words, if your business requires a specific enhanced capability for a specific voice feature, then the one-size-fits-all approach to Hosted VoIP may not be your best solution. Hosted systems typically provide the lowest cost per seat option in a VoIP environment, but hey also tend to deliver the lowest common denominator feature set. If your needs dictate a break-away from the hosted “cookie-cutter”, always remember that total ownership gives you the freedom to implement a solution specific to your needs. To learn more about Cisco’s Premise Telephony Solutions, click the link below:
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