Since its introduction in 1995, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) has become ever more popular among businesses and individuals, due in no small part to wholesale VoIP termination costs and extra flexibility.
Key weakness
VoIP has historically had one significant weakness compared with traditional PSTN lines: it is dependent on both your internet connection and your electricity supply. If either of these fails for any reason, you could potentially lose essential contact with your staff, engineers, customers and even the help centre of your service provider. This is because VoIP phones use the same network as your internet.
There are three main options to overcome these potential issues. These are outlined below.
Opt for a system with built-in redundancy and call continuity
In evaluating potential VoIP systems, it is always worth asking providers about the call continuity and system redundancy features that they offer. Call continuity should involve automatic real-time call forwarding to designated mobile phone numbers when/if your internet service fails. Such systems are known as mobile-ready VoIP and enable businesses and employees to access their VoIP system via mobile devices whether the internet connection is working or not.
Use a backup or alternate ISP
Another popular solution to addressing the possibility of losing the internet connection is to run two separate broadband connections from two different ISPs. You can use the second internet connection to access the internet and make VoIP calls if the main connection goes down. A business might set up to use one network connection for its VoIP phones and one for its computers. And if one goes down, they just switch everything to run through the other one.
Establish a backup connection between the private telephone network and internet cable
In a similar way that having separate ISP connections offers you protection if one goes down, establishing a backup at the point at which your private telephone network connects to your internet cable helps protect against any loss of service caused by damage to the cable that is running into your business. This ensures that there is more than a single point of connection / failure.
The power
The above options are designed to address a potential loss of internet connection which can be caused by a number of issues. But the other event that could potentially take your VoIP system offline is a power failure. The best strategy for preventing/dealing with power failure is to have a power backup in place. An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) will kick into life automatically should there be a power outage. This will enable you to keep your systems running during a short to moderate outage.
Wholesale VoIP termination rates
There are many firms that offer wholesale VoIP termination services. Whether you are a reseller or service provider, wholesale VoIP offers the opportunity to increase profit margins via reduced costs. Established specialists such as IDT offer DIDs in dozens of countries worldwide at highly competitive rates.
