Traditional analogue phone lines are coming to an end: What’s next?
When Alexander Graham Bell invented the very first telephone in 1876, the world was changed. It was possible to hear someone’s voice for the very first time, even if they were many miles away. The telephone burst into popularity. Only three years after its invention, there were almost 49,000 telephones in the United States. This number had increased to 600,000 by the turn of the 20th Century. At some point in the middle of this decade, the number of active telephone subscriptions increased to even more than the number of people on earth!
After 1876 the humble telephone has grown significantly. The smartphone has developed into a status symbol these days and the analogue telephone was left behind. That is about to change.
BT announced it will no longer be taking orders for ISDN phone lines in 2020 and the future, with the decision being made to retire ISDN phone services completely in 2025. BT launched the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) in 1986 and has remained largely unchanged since, despite some upgrades.
If your company is one of the three million that still use an ISDN telephone line in the UK, it’s time to start talking about alternative arrangements. The good news is that these alternative solutions will offer your telephony a major upgrade.
After being first developed around 1995, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony is by no means new. However, it did not become more commonplace until the last decade. When the ISDN withdrawal is complete, VoIP will become the main telephony system for companies across the UK.
VoIP offers several advantages over legacy ISDN telephony. We compiled a list of the top 10:
- Better voice quality – Where Analogue phone calls can degrade between source and destination, digital technology maintains high quality over any distance, meaning calls are clearer and sharper.
- Lower Cap-Ex – Cloud Telephony means that you no longer have to invest in telephone system hardware at each location, and an open market in quality devices means that standards-based handset costs are lower.
- Flexible working – Calls between users are free of charge within the same organisation. Conference calls are quick and easy within your organisation. Need to work from home? No problem, you can have another handset on your broadband at home. Need to stay in touch out of the office? Just use your mobile as a VoIP handset and receive, transfer, record your office phone calls as normal.
- Self-Service – If control is an important factor to you, then Cloud Telephony systems are simple for you to configure and manage. You can set up extensions, access call recordings and assign hunt groups for your team without requiring help from a third party. Easy.
- Easy to install – Purchase your handset, connect it to your broadband network and you’re ready to go. No need for a costly engineer visit to get you up and running. And if you want on-site engineer support, we can provide that too.
- Scalable – VoIP utilises existing network infrastructure. If you need to scale up, all you need to do is buy new handsets and they can use spare capacity on your network, there is no need to install (and pay for) extra phone lines as you would with traditional phone systems.
- Enterprise features – Cloud Telephony has a number of features which traditionally have been out of reach to all but Enterprise organisations. For example, auto-attendant, call centre features, call reporting, cost controls, recording, handset branding and many more.
- Conference Calls – Replace your existing phone conference subscription with a scalable service which is included with your account, all you pay for is the call costs at your normal rate.
- Call Recording – The recording your calls can be activated across your entire organisation with the click of a button. These recordings are logged in a cloud portal and are locked down so only the relevant, company-approved, staff can access them.
- Hunt Groups & Call Routing – Set a list of staff to route calls through. For example, if a member of staff doesn’t answer their phone, the call goes onto the next staff member in that list until somebody answers – perfect for establishing a priority list.
The direction of travel is clear. So why not take advantage of the amazing features on offer by upgrading now?
Through our partnership with the entrust IT Group, we have a wide range of experience in providing VoIP services to businesses. We have a dedicated, UK-based support team that manages technical and billing issues, and our VoIP platform which is established with Broadsoft is built on more than 12 years of experience, with reasonable calling costs to keep your spending to a minimum.
Moreover, our VoIP solution is a ‘white-glove’ service which means we can provide as much (or as little) support as you need. If necessary, we can even run the whole thing for you without having to intervene.
For a limited time, we are offering an initial FREE month of line rental for all users that take up a VoIP contract. Each contract has a three-month ‘cooling off’ period to allow you to leave if you are not happy with the service. We will also offer a discounted rate for 24/36 month contracts.
If you would like to find out more about VoIP, you can download the entrust IT Group brochure here.
Alternatively, you can get in touch with us at info@servalsystems.co.uk or 01342 895180.