Latest Blog Posts
A recent Personnel Psychology study observes that telecommuters are generally more productive than office workers.1 Similar research shows the majority of managers believe telecommuting retains ...
The term cloud computing comes up a lot these days. In short, it refers to the act of connecting with online services to store and manage data. Through cloud computing, businesses can streamline ...
Hackers commit toll fraud by hijacking a phone service and placing unauthorized long-distance calls. In severe cases, they charge thousands of dollars within a few hours. On average, toll-fraud ...
Avoid unnecessary VoIP downtime by eliminating the service and network-level risks outlined below. One hour of downtown equals -$12,500 for the average small business, according to Megapath. Fo ...
A toll-free number is a great asset to businesses with customer bases spread across a country. It allows callers to reach the company without paying long-distance fees. Instead, the business cov ...
Most public spaces offer free Wi-Fi—so much so that we rely on it for our mobile devices. Even at home, most networks support wireless connectivity. It lets us roam with our laptops or stream f ...
The internet is one of the biggest culprits of bad VoIP quality. Factors like bandwidth, codec and security all affect audio data passed to and from a network. Likewise, the components in said n ...
Perhaps the most obvious VoIP advantage is its cost efficiency. Calls over the internet cost less than those over the PSTN. Long distance and roaming do not exist online either. The fact that on ...
Most businesses rely on some form of auto-attendant to greet and process callers. An auto-attendant, also called IVR (interactive voice response), tells callers how to navigate a phone system. T ...
Rising Demands for Scalable, Flexible SMB VoIP Solutions Early last week, Software Advice—a free comparison tool for VoIP solutions—published their annual consumer report, the 2015 Small Business ...
Why Use Bandwidth Savers for VoIP Call Terminations A Synchronous Bandwidth Optimizer (SBO), sometimes referred to as a bandwidth saver, is a complementary VoIP product. It’s a tool that targets ...
What DIDs Do and How They Work Telecom companies provide Direct Inward Dialing (DID) as a feature for calling into Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems. PBXs centralize collections of phone lines ...
How Switching to VoIP Can Boost the Efficiency of Customer Support Centers Call centers receive an incredible amount of traffic. But answering calls constitutes only part of the operation; process ...
Categories for Assessing the Cost of VoIP VoIP carriers like to tout the savings their services provide. The term total cost of ownership (TCO) often comes up, referring to the sum of all direct ...
Monitoring Phone Extensions from an IP-Device Most VoIP solutions include BLF (Busy Lamp Field) as a standard feature, though not all IP-phones support it. Sometimes, manufacturers refer to BLF as ...
Figure 1: Block diagram of an SBC controlling a SIP session. Attribution: Netzschrauber at the German Language (Wikipedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 or CC BY-SA 3.0 de). Definition of a Session Border ...
Mobile VoIP Features and Applications Last week, we resolved to investigate BYOD, assessing its practicality and limitations in the workplace. Appropriately, we wish to turn our attention towards ...
BYOD Plan Considerations and Concerns Although rising in popularity, not every employee looks favourably upon BYOD plans. Largely, younger generations advocate this trend, preferring to merge thei ...
New CRTC Rule Benefits Telephony Customers on a Competitive Market In November 2014, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced that it now prohibits service provide ...
Addressing and Correcting VoIP Latency Latency refers to the time it takes a transmitted audio signal to reach its destination. When a packet travels slowly, due to congestion or poor configuratio ...
VoIP as a Value-Added Service and VoIP with Value-Added Services Value-added services refer to non-standard telecommunications functions—anything beyond calling, messaging and faxing. For instance ...
Speech-to-Text Boosts Productivity and Closes the Gap between Popular Communication Modes Two common VoIP features include voicemail-to-email and text-to-speech. Yet many systems do not offer spee ...
Gadgets rely on numerous power sources. Often, portable devices use batteries—rechargeable or disposable—while stationary devices plug in via DC connection. Yet network components, such as Wireles ...
The Origins of H.323 and SIP In 1995, researchers began looking for ways to exchange audio and video data between computers. Both H.323 and SIP—common VoIP protocols today—originate from this ini ...
What Does VoIP-over-VPN Entail? Many users assess VoIP on three criteria: quality, cost and security. As an internet-based application, measures exist for users to heighten system security, includ ...
Research Illustrates a Growing Demand for VoIP Analytics in 2015 Both Modulis and TechRepublic claim that businesses crave greater back-end functionality from their VoIP systems, especially when i ...
New TechTarget Survey Suggests IT Professionals Will Favour Hard Phones in the New Year Users can connect to and interact with VoIP systems in numerous ways—headsets, smartphones, handsets and mor ...
How VoIP Enables Structured Strategies for Customer Care Did you know that most call centres cater to the needs of the elderly? As expounded in a recent TMCnet column, many customer-service agents ...
Textbooks, Guides and Manuals on Implementing and Using Voice-over-IP Solutions Some business owners and their employees take time off around the holiday, and what better way is there to relax tha ...
How Phone Numbers Boost Credibility and Increase Ecommerce Sales You may or may not realize this, but the majority of websites place business phone numbers somewhere in the header or footer or in ...
The term Unified Communications (UC) appears frequently in tech writing, used to describe the amalgamation of communication streams into a single interface or platform. In other words, UC ties tog ...
The tech market abounds with VoIP providers. If you were to gather data on all available IP-telephony packages and input them into a data matrix, the differences between price and performance for ...
Generally, VoIP desktop phones work the same as any regular home phone on the user’s end, though it plugs in via Ethernet to the computer/router and includes a bevy of fancy new features. Some ATA ...
As the New Year approaches, looking back over 2014 helps us brace for the trends and changes to come. Frost & Sullivan, a respected global research firm, recently investigated the state of the VoI ...
At some point, we’ve all idled impatiently on the highway, wanting to get wherever on time and for the traffic to dissipate. Similarly, many of us have experienced slower than usual internet speed ...
When dealing with complex environments (i.e. large-business configurations), VoIP users may find it advantageous to segment their networks into various broadcast domains, known commonly as VLANs ( ...
Most frequently, VoIP packet loss occurs because of overworking in the jitter buffer—a data area used for collecting, storing, sending and moderating voice packets. Network congestion, link/media ...
VoIP providers usually out-price their landline competitors; businesses and residents all over the world know this. Placing an international call through VoIP is cheaper, quicker and often cleare ...
Tired of pesky telemarketers, who call relentlessly morning, afternoon and evening? Most business- and homeowners discover that switching from landline to VoIP eliminates this nuisance—or at least ...
High-value VoIP packages exist abundantly online. While some offer more than others, the consensus is that said products improve the bottom line. But how does one weigh the pros and cons of free v ...
With more and more VoIP providers sprouting, redundancies in price and performance are bound to surface—if they haven’t already. Consequently, tech-based businesses require impeccable customer sup ...
Businesses can implement call queuing in many ways, though it’s most commonly available through VoIP. Despite the fact customer service agents strive to answer all calls, peak periods can overwhel ...
Months ago, VoIPITS published an article detailing the importance of scalable communications. Some key benefits discussed include decreased transition time, cost reduction, market resilience and i ...
In many instances, users instinctively push the router’s hard reset button when the network acts up. This may not be the end-all-save-all solution, but it can correct many LAN issues. In doing so, ...
“Managed Services in an IP World” Insight Research Corp’s newest report, Managed Services in an IP World: Global Opportunities for Wireless and Wired Networks (2014-2018), estimates global spendin ...
According to Ofcom’s August 2014 Market Report, the use of non-traditional communication channels rose 7% during Q1 2014 because of more fixed- and mobile-data access points in the UK. The increas ...
Portability ranks highly as most desirable VoIP feature, particularly for corporate and recreational travellers. Rather than using funds better-spent sightseeing, VoIP allows users to connect remo ...
How to Scan Your Router for Other Online Devices A bevy of factors can cause slow internet, but network hogs are common culprits to watch for. Such users upload and download heavily, consuming a s ...