Overcoming VoIP hurdles to enjoy its benefits

With the ability to enable both national and global telecommunications with unprecedented productivity and cost-efficiency, IP-based business phone systems such as VoIP (Voice over IP) are quickly becoming a standard for companies evolving into the present day.

Pace International – a high quality agricultural manufacturer and distributor – is one such forward-thinking enterprise that was able to enjoy both cost savings as well as customer service gains by partnering with an IT consulting firm to implement VoIP technology.

According to a 2010 article published by Entrepreneur Magazine, the company was operating across two states with 11 warehouses and eight international offices, necessitating a way to unify communications between these different branches at a reasonable cost. By switching from a legacy system to an IP-based system, the article reports that Pace saved between 10 to 20 percent of its IT department's time each month while enjoying savings of roughly $65,000 in decreased long distance, connectivity and conference calling costs.

However, the article also mentions that the process of transitioning to a VoIP system does involve a certain degree of financial obstacles to be overcome, especially during initial implementation. Fortunately though, by partnering with a reliable service provider, all of these hurdles can reportedly be dealt with.

For example, the article recommends working with a provider with proven service quality standards.

"Regardless of bandwidth, VoIP works best when priorities regarding data types are established," writes author Mikal E. Belicove. "These priorities will vary on a case-by-case basis, but it amounts to favoring certain types of traffic (for example, voice data), without killing others (for example, video)."

Luckily for business officials in Ohio, by turning to a Cincinnati phone company, these goals can be accomplished by tailoring a VoIP program to the specific needs of individual business models from implementation through ongoing support and consultation.

From our offices in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, PRO OnCall is your single-source technology consulting service, offering managed IT support, unified communications solutions and on-call IT support.