An SMB Perspective

“VoIP” is one of the most commonly used and widely misunderstood acronyms in the IT industry. VoIP stands for “Voice over Internet Protocol”. Self-explanatory, right? Unless you are an IT geek, maybe not so much. So what is VoIP? And how do you know if you have it or need it?

Fundamentally, VoIP is a technology that allows businesses (and consumers) to access the public voice network (we’ll refer to it as the Public Switched Telephone Network or “PSTN”) without having a traditional analog or digital voice line (more on that in a moment). Instead of using the voice network, VoIP uses data networks (like the Internet) to “carry” voice traffic, which creates opportunities for cost savings and efficiency.

With the recent developments associated with the COVID-19 virus, many companies are directing their employees to work from home for the next several weeks. As usual, most large companies (500+ employees) have developed this capability for their workforce to a greater or lesser extent. But for small businesses, this may be a bigger challenge.