Integration of VoIP in the business processes brings about a radical change in the face of business communications. Transmission of voice as digital signals through the Internet provides protection from the ’shackles’ of ‘wires’. VoIP provides a cost-effective telephony solution to small, medium and large business set ups.

However, careful calculation is crucial before an organization decides to switch to VoIP telephony system.

1)when should a business switch to VoIP telephony system?

2)when a business involves significant call charges

3)when a business needs to make significant overseas calls

You can avail the benefits of the VoIP technology even with the conventional fully featured telephone system currently present in your set up. You need to use routers to achieve seamless VoIP integration into your business. It needs to be noted that VoIP routers are suitable for small enterprises that require a simple entry level VoIP solution. Routers will not turn out to be an effective solution where the organization involved is exceptionally large and operates a very complex telephone system.

VoIP for businesses (commercial VoIP) should be selected with utmost care. Selection of a right VoIP service provider is crucial as the success of the commercial VoIP will depend significantly upon the service provider you choose. VoIP solutions come in many shades and flavors. There are fully hosted solutions, partially hosted solutions, locally hosted solutions, true VoIP, partial VoIP, IP-capable PBX units, softPBX devices, VoIP servers, messaging gateways and the list just goes on and on. The best solution for one business is unlikely to suit the business next door. So, the best first step is to seek advice from industry experts or VoIP solution providers and system integrators.

If you have a small business and your voice requirements are minimal, investigate what your ISP has to offer. Many ISPs are offering broadband-based VoIP solutions, and they're generally pretty good. See what features you'll receive, how the call costs compare to your current plan and whether you'd make savings over time. This way, you don't have to worry about implementing a local solution when someone else takes care of everything.

For medium businesses and larger, the options are simply too varied to list comprehensively in one spot. Each vendor will offer you a different package, different solutions, different hardware, different software products, different features, hosting options and support agreements.

The best course of action is to approach a small number of VoIP integrators to get an overview from each one as to what is likely to be suitable for your business, and compare them. If they're any good, the proposals should be fairly close to each other, which makes it easy to discard any obviously inflated quotes. Start with your current voice carrier as all major telephone companies now offer VoIP solutions for business.

However, you can start getting to grips with VoIP in the office by setting up a test environment and involving a few key users to test messaging functionality, service integration and hardware. You can easily set up a software-based PBX server for free, get hold of some handsets and softphone applications and start assessing their value.