Planning for a telephony upgrade: All you need to know.

If you’re considering an upgrade to Hosted VoIP for your phone system, there are a few things you should remember. Firstly, a VoIP telephone system can have some implications for your Internet lines, particularly if you are moving from a legacy network. Therefore it is important that you take the time to understand the implications of the change, and ensure you use your VoIP providers expertise.

Secondly, if you are moving from a legacy phone system (one that uses analogue phone lines) you should expect a surge in activity once your phones move over to using your broadband. How big this spike is will rely on the frequency in which your employees make and receive calls, as well as the number of phone users on your network.

If you do not carry out proper planning and risk assessments before making the move, you may be shocked by slow internet connections and jumpy, incoherent calls between users. It is paramount that you assess the strength of your current internet connection to ensure you get the most from your move to VoIP telephony.

There is no hard and fast rule on exactly how capable your internet speeds must be, it depends largely on the demand you are likely to put on your connections You should try to get a feel for how many phone calls are made and received in an average day at your organisation, and how many of your staff are online on their phones at any one time. Compare both of these with the speed of your internet connection so you can predict the impact it will have. If you want to get the best results, you should ensure your locations have fibre internet connections.

Another essential element is that you logically plan the way your internet connections are managed. Segregating bandwidth between voice and data, with some leftover to offer extra resilience is good practice. Failure to do this will mean that the actions of only a few, will impact all users. For example, if an employees in your organisation downloaded a video or streamed music at a time of heavy use on your network, their actions could cause you to drop calls. However, if your connections are segregated, a bottleneck on your data network will not impact the quality of your phone calls.

If you are looking to make the switch to VoIP, do not let this blog put you off! We can assure you that the benefits of moving to a VoIP system over analogue connections are huge. However, as with any upgrade in infrastructure, it pays to think carefully before acting. Using an IT provider such as Serval IT Systems will help ensure your transition to a new VoIP environment is as smooth as possible.

Adopters of the Serval Cloud VoIP platform have already enjoyed access to a friendly service team who can support your VoIP infrastructure at all times. At the beginning of your contract, Serval engineers will conduct a thorough assessment of your internet connection, using their experience of countless VoIP installations to spot any potential issues. Any problems will be worked on and ironed out before they affect your business. Moreover, we will logically segregate your connections between voice and data to ensure that the activity on your data connections does not impact voice performance.

Please get in touch for more information.