Longtime business DSL and VoIP operator Speakeasy, now owned by BestBuy, has identified what they call the Five Myths of VoIP that prevent business from making the switch to VoIP:
1. It’s not really going to save much money- saves up to 45% over traditional services in some cases, not to mention costs of switching employee phone lines, which increase the average phone bill by about 30%.
2. It’s too much of a hassle to set up and manage – Hosted VoIP is as simple as setting up Internet service, and Integrated VoIP can plug right into existing equipment for those locked in a lease.
3. Call clarity is inferior to traditional phone quality – VoIP providers can optimize Internet bandwidth to ensure voice quality.
4. The technology is still too new – VoIP has been around since the mid 90s, and is trusted by millions of companies as their preferred source of communication.
5. VoIP is just a large business solution and is not necessary for small businesses – small businesses can achieve big business telecom functionality at a fraction of the cost with VoIP.
I agree with most of this but not with 3 – Call quality is both better and worse than traditional phone services.
Bandwidth has little to do with the quality, except in some cases. The real problem is dropped packets which can happen even when a lot of bandwidth is available.
I agree, for the most part.
#3 – While there are an ever decreasing number of instances, some customers of our business voip service experience dropped packets and latency due to Internet hop issues that neither the customer nor the provider can control.
#2 – Setting up business voip service is EASIER than setting up Internet service.