Advantages and Disadvantages of Voip

Although almost everyone you’ll meet in the next year or so will be singing praises about the wonders of using Voice over ip and Internet telephony, in truth there are both advantages and disadvantages of using VoIP.

Yes, there IS an ugly side.

Although most experts agree that the minus points of VoIP is just a “temporary” problem that will be eliminated as the technology goes from strength to strenth, let have a look at it anyway.

Here’s a simple explanation, and it’s not recommended for techno geeks :)…

Advantage of VoIP

1) Cost Savings & FREE Calls

This is perhaps the most obvious. True enough, the very nature of VoIP technology means that everyone can make significant cost savings for their business, especially if you have mutiple branches nationwide or overseas.

Cheap calls and free calls may be the attraction for VoIP right now, but the future will be about value-added voip services, and cost will take the backseat.

2) Portability - One Global Number

One important concept to understand about VoIP is that unlike it’s forefathers (let’s calll them PSTN for now), it is not distance or location dependent.

As far as VoIP is concerned, you could be calling your supplier 1,000 miles away in Indonesia or calling your business partner on the other end of town, and it doesn’t make any difference at all, in terms of connectivity and cost. Many of our recommended Voip service providers have this feature.

No extra cables, no extra cost.

A VoIP phone number, unlike your regular phone number, is completely portable. Most commonly referred to as a virtual number, you can take it with you anywhere you go.

Even if you change your office address to another state, you phone number can go with you. Heck, you can even take your whole business with you wherever you travel…

4) Integrated Communications

This is where the advantages of VoIP become VERY clear. My friends, how would you like to have all these excellent communications tools in one package:

• Making cheap local and international phone calls
• Audio conferencing & Video conferencing
• Have Voice messages sent to your email
• Call forwarding, call waiting
• Fax thru e-mail
• Send and receive multimedia files
• Sharing photos while talking

.. and much, much more.

If you look at our recommended voip solutions it won’t take you long to find the type of packages and services that will change the way you communicate forever.

Disadvantages of Voip

All good things have a bad side, and so does Voice over IP. While the pros may be overwhelmingly attractive, as a small business owner, you should know the disadvantages as well.

Here are some of the main disadvantages of voip:

1) Power Supply Dependency

Yes, your VoIP service will be dependent on your power supply. No power, no phone calls.

This is mainly because the equipment is hosted on your side, and not in some telecommunications exchange like the usual PSTN networks.

However, in the future when most countries make a complete shift to IP based networks, and most telcos go 100% VoIP, this problems should by all means cease to exist.

Most PSTN lines are power-independent simply because they have back-up power in the exchanges, and even during blackouts you’ll be able to make calls. This is one thing that VoIP does not have at the moment.

This disadvantage would mean that you will need a back-up PSTN line in case of emergencies, and for calling 911. In fact, most businesses we have consulted do indeed have at least one backup PSTN phone line.

2) Security Issues

Charles Cabre mentioned this in his September 2004 report, “Advantages and Disadvantages of the Voice Over Internet Protocol Business” (get pdf) and many other voip experts agree that security is a major concern when choosing a voip solution.

One of the major concerns is “packet sniffing” where bad, bad people with nothing better to do in their lives can actually “spy” on your conversation without effecting the call at all.

Sort of like eavesdropping on your conversation with a friend. Surely, we all hate eavesdroppers.

Security concerns, in my experience and opinion, will always be a concern, no matter how technology evolves. There will always be somone who finds a loophole and manipulates it. Those are things beyond your control.

However, there ARE things in your control, and you can take simple steps to make sure you’re getting the best protection that money can buy.

3) Quality Control

The basics of VoIP is very different from regular PSTN, which uses “C7 signalling” for controlling quality of service.

Due to the nature of VoIP, your calls are streamed by packets to the destination, and any inconsistency would mean issues like jitter, packet loss and echo.

These problems, while posing some considerable inconvenience a few years back, are being eliminated even as you’re reading this.

4) Bandwidth Dependent

In any small bsuienss or home office setting, you’ll typically have one broadband line which is shared by multiple users, for downloading data, sending emails, and viewing web sites andmultimedia applications.

Add a VoIP system to that, and your bandwidth will soon be sucked dry.

The only way to solve this problem is to have a dedicated E1 (larger user base) or at least a dedicated broadband connection.

Home offices may not face this problem if there are less than 3 similtaneous users.

Recommendations

Please read our VoIP solutions guide to understand your business network settings, and make an intelligent business decision on where, what and how to invest in VoIP systems.