Virtual PBX and Call Centre VoIP Solutions<title> <meta name="description" content="PhonePresence virtual PBX and call centre solutions can integrate VoIP and PSTN telephony."> <meta name="keywords" content="voip, voice over internet protocol, voip solution, voip switchboard, voip pbx, voip call centre">  <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="includes/css/main.css"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico"> <script language="javaScript" type="text/javascript" src="includes/js/main.js"></script> <script language="javaScript" type="text/javascript" src="includes/js/scroll.js"></script> <script language="javaScript" type="text/javascript" src="includes/js/loader.js"></script> </head> <body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" onLoad="MM_preloadImages('images/btn_overview_sw.gif','images/btn_product_sw.gif','images/btn_info_sw.gif','images/btn_login_sw.gif','images/btn_contact_sw.gif')"> <table width="800" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td><img src="images/hd_1.jpg" width="428" height="80"></td> <td><img src="images/hd_logo.gif" width="372" height="80"></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" valign="top" background="images/btn_fill.gif"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"> <tr> <td width="314"><img src="images/btn_img.jpg" name="btn_img" width="182" height="19" border="0" id="btn_img"></td> <td><a href="http://www.phonepresence.co.uk" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('btn_overview','','images/btn_overview_sw.gif',1);MM_displayStatusMsg('PhonePresence Virtual Phone System');return document.MM_returnValue"><img src="images/btn_overview.gif" name="btn_overview" width="83" height="19" border="0"></a></td> <td><a href="product_range.htm" onmouseover="cswmShow('product','productButton','below',0,0);MM_displayStatusMsg('PhonePresence Product Range');return document.MM_returnValue" onmouseout="cswmHide()"><img id="productButton" name="productButton" src="images/btn_product.gif" width="120" height="19" border="0"></a></td> <td><a href="company_info.htm" onmouseover="cswmShow('info','infoButton','below',0,0);MM_displayStatusMsg('PhonePresence Company Information');return document.MM_returnValue" onmouseout="cswmHide()"><img id="infoButton" name="infoButton" src="images/btn_info.gif" width="103" height="19" border="0"></a></td> <td><a href="https://www.x-ondata.com/xonweb/Login.aspx" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('btn_login','','images/btn_login_sw.gif',1);MM_displayStatusMsg('Client Admin Login');return document.MM_returnValue"><img src="images/btn_login.gif" name="btn_login" width="103" height="19" border="0"></a></td> <td><a href="contact.htm" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('btn_contact','','images/btn_contact_sw.gif',1);MM_displayStatusMsg('Contact PhonePresence');return document.MM_returnValue"><img src="images/btn_contact.gif" name="btn_contact" width="77" height="19" border="0"></a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td rowspan="2"><img src="images/hd_2.jpg" alt="PhonePresence" name="hd_2" width="130" height="160" id="hd_2"></td> <td colspan="2"><img src="images/hd_3_voip.jpg" alt="VoIP PBX Solutions can reduce Corporate and Small Business costs" name="hd_3_voip" width="670" height="72" id="hd_3_voip"></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><img src="images/hd_4.jpg" alt="PhonePresence" name="hd_4" width="364" height="88" id="hd_4"></td> <td><img src="images/hd_5_voip.jpg" alt="VoIP PBX Solutions can reduce Corporate and Small Business costs" name="hd_5_voip" width="306" height="88" id="hd_5_voip"></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top"><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" class="number"> <tr> <td align="right"><img src="images/number.gif" width="180" height="20" alt="080 0075 0075"></td> </tr> </table> <table width="100%" cellspacing="0" class="content"> <tr> <td height="10" colspan="3"><img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="10"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10"> </td> <td valign="top" style="padding-bottom: 10px;"> <h1>VOIP Solutions</h1> <p><h2>VoIP Integration with PhonePresence Virtual PBX and Call Centre</h2></p> <p>PhonePresence Virtual Switchboard and Call Centre products can include the option of making and receiving calls using VOIP phones in addition to traditional phone lines - landlines or mobiles.</p> <p>As awareness of VoIP continues to grow the option to integrate IP Telephony with business phone systems is increasingly a cost consideration.</p> <h2>Tier 1 VoIP Carrier</h2> <p>PhonePresence uses a Tier 1 VoIP carrier route incorporating several high quality carriers including Verizon and Cable & Wireless. Within the confines of current IP technology, PhonePresence can provide calls approaching traditional PSTN quality.</p> <p>PhonePresence VoIP is currently the highest quality available and this is a consideration when evaluating providers in the hosted VOIP sector, many of whom use cheaper low quality routes.</p> <h1>VoIP Decision</h1> <p><h2>Is VoIP the Right Choice for Business?</h2></p> <p>VOIP, the much hyped new standard for sending calls over the Internet, is set to revolutionise the telecoms industry with its promise of free calls, cheaper infrastructure and extra features to become more integrated with your data network. As with most new technologies, there are some risks and this article takes a quick look at some of the factors business should take into account when making a decision on how to set up virtual telephony infrastructure.</p> <h2>VOIP - What is it good for?</h2> <p>As the considerable press coverage has touted, VOIP phones can offer free calls to other VOIP phones and generally cheaper calls to traditional phones (although when comparing charges watch out for 'minimum call lengths' which often round all call costs up to the nearest minute).</p> <p>With VoIP an Internet connection, such as ADSL Broadband, can be shared with your data traffic and a PC with headphones can be used as a phone.</p> <h2>VOIP - What is it not so good for?</h2> <p>In the UK, BT is undertaking a substantial upgrade of the telecommunications voice and data network under the title '21st Century Network' or '21CN'. This is promised to overcome the current main limitation of VOIP which is call quality, particularly when the call goes over the public Internet.</p> <p>The technical comparison between VOIP and traditional telephony is (very) roughly analogous to the difference between taking a car journey and a train journey. In the VOIP situation, the 'packets' which represent your voice, are packed into cars and sent up the M6 where they take their chances alongside other packets and may even take different routes. Since there is less control over how many of these are on the move at any time, jams are a risk - your voice mostly ends up at the destination, but can be delayed and be less comprehensible. Traditional phone calls go on a high speed train line, and provided the tracks are available, the response is more predictable.</p> <p>There are many mechanisms which attempt to overcome this, however you can be pretty confident that on average, the quality of a small (but often unacceptable) proportion of your VOIP calls will cause them to be disruptive to intelligent conversation.</p> <p>The use of the less robust Internet network also means that breakdowns due to congestion or 'Denial of Service' attacks are more frequent, even for the largest providers - Skype has experienced two days major disruption in the month of writing (August 2007).</p> <p>The use of Tier 1 carriers can mitigate these issues, and increasingly calls can approach the quality of traditional telephony, but failures are still a risk that may not be acceptable in a sales or customer service environment.</p> <p>Another factor often missed is that VOIP handsets are currently two to three times as expensive as traditional phones. A soft-phone, that runs on a PC, may be an alternative for some, but many will find it an irritating way to make or receive phone calls and inconveniently disappears when the PC is turned off or crashes.</p> <p>It should also be noted that the cost savings of VOIP calls to non-VOIP numbers (landlines and mobiles) are often exaggerated, particularly when international calls are excluded. Traditional phone companies are reducing their call costs in response to competition from VOIP companies, and the costs of calls in the UK is set to drop across the board in the coming years.</p> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p>There is no hard and fast conclusion, and whether you adopt VOIP for your company <i>now </i>depends on your view of the benefits of potential cost savings over potential irritations, or worse still, customer dissatisfaction.</p> <p><b>A VoIP Rough Guide:</b></p> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td width="20" align="right"><img src="images/sqw.gif" width="10" height="12"></td> <td>VOIP is a useful tool for organizations where there is a need to communicate between sites or to home workers. Calls are free and a problem with quality is not mission-critical. This is sometimes referred to as 'Intracomm' - internal communication.</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td align="right"><span class="block1"><img src="images/sqw.gif" width="10" height="12"></span></td> <td>Many companies will not tolerate VOIP quality issues for inbound or outbound customer sales and support calls. A traditional or virtual phone system that can use landlines and/or mobiles is still the best option for the time being.</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td align="right"><span class="block1"><img src="images/sqw.gif" width="10" height="12"></span></td> <td>Some overseas operations, such as overseas call centres and virtual companies operating overseas with a UK number, have sufficient cost benefits to override the quality issues, and there is in some instances a reduced customer expectation.</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td align="right"><span class="block1"><img src="images/sqw.gif" width="10" height="12"></span></td> <td>Sometimes a VOIP system can be used internally with a gateway to the phone network on the premises, allowing calls to be selectively routed without having to have different types of phone on the network.</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td align="right"><span class="block1"><img src="images/sqw.gif" width="10" height="12"></span></td> <td>The perception that a Virtual Switchboard is necessarily VOIP based is incorrect. PhonePresence is a Virtual Switchboard that can use either the traditional network or VOIP phones. It should also be noted that, when using traditional inbound and outbound call routes, no element of the call is routed over the Internet - not the case when a VOIP service provider transfers your inbound call to a landline.</td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td align="right"><span class="block1"><img src="images/sqw.gif" width="10" height="12"></span></td> <td>A summary conclusion is that a business quality phone network should always include at least the ability for calls to be routed over the traditional Public Switched Telecom Network (PSTN) for now. Choosing a hybrid Virtual Switchboard such as PhonePresence gives you the best of both worlds with cost saving, quality and future proofing built in.</td> </tr> </table> <p>For more information on the VoIP Virtual Switchboard visit the <a href="http://www.voippresence.co.uk" title="VoIP Corporate Virtual Switchboard and Small Business PBX" target="_blank"><b>VoIPPresence</b></a> site or contact Sales on <b>080 0075 0075</b> for advice on integrating VoIP with PhonePresence.</p> </td> <td width="190" align="right" valign="top" background="images/bkgnd_rightcol.gif">  <table width="180" cellspacing="0" class="rightcol"> <tr> <td background="images/tbl_hdfill.gif" class="toprow"><img src="images/tbl_cnr_topL.gif" name="tbl_cnr_topL" width="12" height="12" border="0" id="tbl_cnr_topL"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="row1"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" class="search"> <form name=formSear action="search.asp" method="get"> <tr> <td><input type="text" name=searWords size="12" 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width="178" height="136" id="iso9001" class="iso"> <div class="divider"><img src="images/spacer.gif" height="10"></div> <table width="180" cellspacing="0" class="rightcol"> <tr> <td background="images/tbl_hdfill.gif" class="toprow"><img src="images/tbl_cnr_topL.gif" name="tbl_cnr_topL" width="12" height="12" border="0" id="tbl_cnr_topL"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="row1b">Automated Support</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="row3">The <b>Automated Support System</b> informs our clients on progress of their support queries, an email being issued at the various stages of the investigation into their enquiry.<br> <img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="6"><br> The <b>Support Web Page</b> logs support issues directly into our database for the attention of the Support Team, saving time and speeding up the resolution of an enquiry.</td> </tr> </table> <div class="divider"><img src="images/spacer.gif" height="10"></div> <table width="180" cellspacing="0" class="rightcol"> <tr> <td 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Office.<br> <img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="6"><br> <a href="branch_locator.htm">More Info...</a></td> </tr> </table> <div class="divider"><img src="images/spacer.gif" height="10"></div> <table width="180" cellspacing="0" class="rightcol"> <tr> <td background="images/tbl_hdfill.gif" class="toprow"><img src="images/tbl_cnr_topL.gif" name="tbl_cnr_topL" width="12" height="12" border="0" id="tbl_cnr_topL"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="row1b">IVR Services</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="row2">The PhonePresence Hosted Phone System can be used for an extensive array of <b>General IVR</b> applications but with the cost savings and ease of maintenance provided by Outsourcing.<br> <img src="images/spacer.gif" width="1" height="6"><br> <a href="http://www.x-on.co.uk/products_ivr.htm" target="_blank">More Info...</a></td> </tr> </table>  <div class="divider"><img src="images/spacer.gif" height="10"></div> </td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" class="footer"> <a 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