At the moment lots of businesses are making the switch to Voice Over Internet Protocol (or VoIP for short) as a way to save money on expensive monthly telephone bills. Of course there is no denying that consumers are also taking advantage of internet telephony but it's the business world that typically has the most to gain by incorporating business VoIP into their telephone service, for a number of reasons. Below are some of the top reasons why businesses should consider VoIP.

Integrated Communications and Added Features

It is worth mentioning in this regard that far from being just another telephone service, VoIP actually integrates several forms of communication. Believe it or not, you get a lot of the standard features you'll find with most telephone services, business VoIP can also incorporate enhanced calling features not available anywhere else, at least not for the same low price. Some of these features include are mentioned below:

Integrated voice mail and email: First and foremost, listen to your email on your VoIP-enabled phone or read your voice mail on your computer)

Web access: Whats more High end VoIP phones come equipped with screens that allow you to surf the web right from the phone itself

Softphone support: In addition you can access your data and make phone calls from any computer connected to the Internet by using specialized software to place and receive calls. Fact remained that you'll no longer have to go "find a phone" when you're traveling and won't have to burn up costly mobile phone minutes to keep in touch with the office.

Compatible With Your Existing Phone System

If experts are to be believed, one of the biggest concerns when switching to VoIP is what type of equipment you will need to make the switch and how much it will cost. It is worth pointing that depending on the answer and how much calling you do, it might not make sense to switch to VoIP. Though, most businesses (and even consumers) can realize significant savings by switching to VoIP and can do so while keeping most of their legacy phone equipment.

Mobile and Flexible Calling

Furthermore with options like softphones and "follow me" features, your mobile workforce has plenty of alternatives for placing and receiving calls. In simple terms, using the "follow me" feature, your mobile staff can have their phones ring both in the office and on their cell phone or other mobile device so they're always within easy reach.

Reduced Cost

In case if you've ever tried making heads or tails of your monthly phone bill, you quickly realized that the phone company nickel and dimes you for everything under the Sun and varies how much they charge per call based on which calling area the recipient is in. In an ideal scenario this sort of nonsense is great for the phone company but makes it difficult to gauge what your monthly bill is going to be in order to make projections for down the road. Fact remained that by using VoIP service for out-of-area calling, you get to enjoy the simplicity and lower overall cost that comes with paying a flat fee. If experts are to be believed, this is one of the biggest benefits of switching to VoIP since it can relieve quite a few headaches and significantly impact a company's bottom line.

Theoretically speaking to get started making your transition to VoIP, your first step should be researching the different options available to you. Believe it or not, there are several business VoIP info sites online that provide this type of info as well as the sites for the individual companies that provide internet telephony service. Thats why be sure to evaluate the various plans each company has to offer, the contractual terms and how the plans can be incorporated into your business.

Following this route, pretty soon, you'll be able taking advantage of the lower cost and better features that come with incorporating VoIP into your business telephone system and most likely, you'll never look back once you adopt this increasingly popular technology.

There is no denying that organizational structures in businesses have evolved from being in centralized locations to having offices that are located all across the geography. As a matter of fact the concept of network organizations enables employees, who work in groups for a project, to be at different locations. Whats more PC-to-PC connectivity has enhanced the capabilities to transfer files and to conduct net meetings by such employees over the Internet.

It is worth mentioning in this regard that before the advent of Internet telephony, businesses with multiple locations and employees always on the move had to incur heavy charges for communications by way of long-distance calls and international calls. Furthermore this is obvious from the fact that a traveling sales representative once had to report to the corporate office about the sales figures through public phones or mobile phones. Moreover with the arrival of local and wide-area networks, connectivity issues between fixed locations became lessened. But it is worth remembering that the charges incurred for the maintenance of such legacy systems were high because of administration costs and network management.

Always remember that the components for business Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, are the same as those for any other VoIP applications, except for the ownership of network infrastructure such as IP PBX and other routers for network management. In addition, Voice Facilities Managed services are provided by business VoIP providers, obviating the need for ownership of infrastructure.

In simple terms, the features available in VoIP are calling extension, caller account information and seamless call transfer, which are essentially the same as those provided by traditional PBX. Furthermore the major advantage is for network administrators. Fact remained that VoIP network and architecture can be managed through web interface, the job has become easier by remote maintenance. Whats more, the need to call the vendor for configuration in terms of Move, Add, and Change (MAC) is reduced. Furthermore the other advantage is for the employees, who can make free calls through soft phones with their laptops from any location.