What's good  verses What to be careful of in the complex world of VOIP

The newest technology that almost 75% of my clients think they want is VOIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol. Yes it is an excellent technology, but like many things that are new and exciting one has to ask themselves a couple of very important questions.

1. What is VOIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol. (which I have tried my best to answer on my VOIP  page.

2. Is Voice of Internet Protocol (VOIP)  what I need for my company?

3. What is the cost difference between conventional voice lines (cooper lines) versus VOIP.

As a professional in the telecom industry for over 35 years, I have seen a lot of technologies come and go. I for one believe that the VOIP industry is here, and here to stay. Now is it the right choice for everyone? That answer is a strong "NO"

One must have a need. The trade offs are sometimes substantial. The very first question is do you have multiple locations. If your answer is yes then VOIP is a great solution to keep the two or more offices in touch with each other and offer seamless transferring of calls as well as a host of cost savings on many levels. If you have only the one office and your needs like the vast majority of user in the United States are under 8 lines, than the trade offs may not be worth the expense as well as the loss of the guaranteed quality of service we have become very use to. VOIP especially with the smaller users tends to have QOS issues,  "Quality Of Service".

The issues of "QUALITY OF SERVICE" are vast. As I have learned the very hard way, as a the owner of a very established "Interconnect Company" which in the day meant we sold and serviced telephone system with standard copper lines form AT&T or Verizon or a host of other resellers, we thought that installing these new VOIP system would be a piece of cake. Well we really thought wrong.  It takes an experienced IT computer person who understand what bandwidth means and how to test your network BEFORE you engage someone to just install a VOIP system.

Newcom Networks now has key personal that can do just that. We do an in depth study of what your present network is and weather it can handle the traffic that your company will require. I am more than sure you have called to someone and it sounded like they were talking underwater. That is just part of the issue of the lack of QOS!!

Stay tuned I will have more to say in the next few days.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.