Looking back at all the customers we’ve installed PBX solutions, commercial phone systems, and now hosted voice solutions for, I’ve noticed something that they all have in common, telecom waste. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at 4 ways you can save money…now.
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#1. Analyze your spending, know your numbers, and take action
We still find that most business owners and their staff have no idea what type of voice and data circuits they have or how many. Consequentially, they have more capacity than they need and are paying a premium for that capacity.
We often find that a file cabinet now sits in front of where the modem line used to be, or a desk was moved to where the alarm line used to reside, only to be forgotten about. The secret here is that even though you forgot about the analog line, the phone company hasn’t. A single $25 analog line can cost you a whopping $300 over the course of a year! We’ve seen customers going years without analyzing their phone bills. In larger organizations, it becomes increasingly more difficult to manage, as you don’t want to disconnect a circuit for fear someone or something might be using it.
#2. Convert services from analog to IP
A few years ago, it was common to have analog lines for faxes, modems, credit card machines, alarm systems, postage meters, etc. Slowly, companies are migrating from analog to digital (IP) methods of communication.
Technology has changed over the past couple years so that these devices no longer depend
solely on analog communications. Now, almost all of these devices can run over your computer (data) network and over the Internet for FREE. You might have to swap out your credit card machine or postage meter for a newer IP version. But it’s a quicker, more efficient, and reliable way to do business.
#3. Consolidate services (converged voice and data)
This is the cornerstone of Voice over IP, VoIP technology. Back in the day, it was common to have separate voice and data circuits. The limitation of this model, being that you have double the cost and an inefficient use of your circuits. It’s conceivable that you could have a PRI circuit that is under utilized, especially if call volumes were low, while your Internet T1 was over utilized.
With convergence, now, we can combine voice and data on a single circuit, when call volumes are low, you can use the bandwidth for data and vice versa. It’s a more efficient use of your circuits and drives down the total cost. Some providers refer to this as a “Flex-T1” service. A more modern way to accomplish the same thing is to use an IP voice circuit, know as SIP, Session Initiation Protocol, which WIKI explains as “used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol (IP).”
#4. Adopt a cloud based phone system solution
At some point, your phone system will become obsolete, unsupported, or just broken. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and do NOT buy another phone system. You want to begin thinking about and researching a cloud based phone system.
We’ll dive deeper in another article about a cloud based phone system or “hosted voice”, but for this discussion, I’ll just give you a little intro.
A hosted voice solution takes all the phone hardware (PBX, Public Branch Exchange) and hosts it in the cloud (hosted PBX) at a secure data center. Your phones register to the phone system in the cloud/data center. The only thing left on the network at your office is your phone. That’s it. Typically all the hardware on the wall, all voice circuits, all the mess of cables, and the stack of phone bills … it all goes away. You eliminate the hardware infrastructure costs, software, and hardware maintenance, and the time it takes for you to administer the system. That’s real cost savings!
Again, do your homework, research your options, and make an educated decision.
We’d love to hear from you. If you have other ideas on ways to save money on your telecom, let us hear from you by commenting on our blog.
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