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Virtual Numbers: 5 Benefits for Your Business

By Gisele Dahis December 8, 2017

One of the main benefits of business VoIP is that it offers a much wider selection of features compared to the traditional phone network. Since VoIP technology has no physical limitation or hardware necessary to start a new feature like PSTN does, it can deliver the best low-cost enterprise features with a fraction of the hassle. But it’s no surprise that with so many features available, some really good ones can go unnoticed or are simply underused by most users. The best example of these features is Virtual Numbers, a unique and powerful tool that not all businesses understand how much it can benefit them in the long term. So what exactly is a Virtual Number? Also known as DID (Direct Inward Dialing), a Virtual number is a telephone number that is not directly associated to a telephone line and can be assigned to any device such as a hardware…

Telecom News

VoIP Events You Don’t Want to Miss

By Carlota Vilalva December 4, 2017

Are you part of the VoIP industry or just interested in the subject? Are you wondering what the VoIP market is up to? Do you want to keep your strategy ahead of the game? Are you concerned about the future of cloud communications? If so, you should start attending VoIP events and conferences, after all, it is the best way for you to stay up-to-date with the latest VoIP news, innovations, trends, and at the same time engage in high-quality networking. There are hundreds of telecom conferences around the world, but here are our top must-attend VoIP events: IT EXPO This event was first held 18 years ago and it is still one of the industry’s most important annual starting points. With its content and participants continuously evolving with the marketplace, is it one of the only VoIP events dedicated to solutions that drive communications transformation for the enterprise mid-market,…

People & Interviews

Mark Spencer: Mastering the Software-Based PBX

By Carlota Vilalva November 29, 2017

Few have contributed as greatly to the open-source world of VoIP and telecommunications as Mark Spencer. Faced with financial obstacles, he did what any good leader would and built his own solution that has since then benefitted businesses around the world. His open-source framework Asterisk has been able to disrupt the status quo of PBX or Private Branch Exchange, systems while giving business owners a way to inexpensively manage their telecommunications. Education and Beginnings Mark Spencer wasn’t a man who came out of nowhere and built this innovative program. He was enrolled at Auburn University as a computer engineer when the entrepreneurial spirit first hit him. While still a student and finishing up his degree, Spencer decided it was time to put his education to the test and found his own business. This culminated in Linux Support Systems, a company started in 1999 with the original aim of supplying Linux support…

Telecom News

Call Center Challenges: Inbound Calling in Focus

By Gideon Hack November 27, 2017

Call centers are at the front line of customer service and are expected to run at peak efficiency while maintaining a high call volume. There are many challenges in managing and operating a call center, one of them being securing inbound calling services that meet both current and future needs. Voice support serves as the backbone for the call center, and it is short-sighted for a brand to risk their reputation by exposing consumers to a substandard voice product. Management is constantly concerned with basic communication issues. Are callers getting a busy signal? Are calls being dropped? Is the voice quality satisfactory? At the same time, the concurrent call requirements have to be managed, to ensure sufficient capacity without wasting money on excess channels. Furthermore, in recent years, organizations have seen their customer base contact them not only through more media channels but also from diverse locations around the globe.…

Guides & Tips

How to Choose the Best Softphone for You

By Gideon Hack November 27, 2017

Well-designed software and plentiful features are essential to having the best softphone: effective and useful. This is especially true of the user interface (UI), where all the necessary functions must be displayed front and center, smoothly integrating voice operations with the workflow processes. In many cases, the softphone is designed to resemble a traditional telephone, with a display panel and buttons for user control, very much like a standard phone interface. Over and above the importance of the user interface, there are a number of factors to consider when choosing the right product. We will discuss these factors in order to assist you in making an informed decision in selecting the best softphone. Cost There is a wide range of both free and paid softphones. In many cases, vendors offer a free, limited-feature version of their paid products. If you wish to use the free version, then you should carefully evaluate this…

Guides & Tips

How to Choose the Right DID Provider

By Gideon Hack November 27, 2017

The VoIP industry is booming, and this has created a significant demand for DID (Direct Inbound Dialing) services and choosing a DID provider has become harder. Very often, these services are essential to the basic premise of the business or enterprise; incoming calls should reach their required destination efficiently with the proper quality and expected reliability. In all likelihood, voice support serves as the backbone for your business, and it is short-sighted to risk your reputation by exposing employees and consumers to a substandard voice product. Selecting a provider that satisfies your requirements for coverage, quality, scalability, and pricing is a complex issue, and some of the essential criteria to consider during this decision process are: Global Coverage Ensure that your DID provider includes the geographic coverage of numbers that you require for your business, including toll-free, local, mobile, national and SMS-enabled numbers. In addition, the provider should be actively…

Telecom News

DID: What is it and How Does it Work?

By Gideon Hack November 14, 2017

Most businesses today have several incoming telephone numbers, each one used for a different purpose or department such as customer service, sales, marketing etc. Some companies even have the ability to assign a personal phone number to each employee without requiring multiple physical phone lines, making it possible for telephone traffic to be split up and managed more easily. This powerful framework is only achievable using Direct Inward Dialling (DID). DID, also known in Europe as DDI (Direct Dial-in), is a service offered by telephone companies, that allows organizations, who operate a private branch exchange (PBX) system, to have multiple telephone numbers lines connected to one or more analog or digital physical circuits to their PBX. The system sends the dialed telephone number to the PBX so that an outside caller can have direct access to the PBX extension, possibly avoiding an auto-attendant. In a business with DID, the telephone…

Telecom News

OrecX Turns Call Recording Feature into a Platform

By Carlota Vilalva November 9, 2017

“This call may be monitored and recorded for record-keeping, training and quality-assurance purposes,” is a message that probably all of us have heard before when calling a contact center. But once an agent answers the phone, we immediately forget that we are being recorded, after all, we will most likely never hear that call recording. For the Contact Center, on the other hand, that recording is extremely useful. It allows business to collect and analyze a set of data that enables them to improve and optimize their service. However, there is much more to call recording than the eyes can meet. Steve Kaiser, Co-founder and CEO of OrecX Open Source Recording, shows us that it is not only a great feature available thanks to Business VoIP and the Cloud, but a powerful tool to boost your business. Why do businesses use call recording? Businesses are aware that nowadays customer experience…

Market Trends

SIP Trunking Market to Grow at CAGR of 18.23%

By Gisele Dahis November 5, 2017

According to Technavio’s analysts, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.23% by 2021. SIP Trunking is an Internet-based service that allows businesses to extend VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony beyond the organization’s firewall without the need for an IP-PSTN gateway. It allows VoIP users to stay connected in local and long-distance calls to and from endpoints in the traditional phone network. The report ‘Global Session Initiation Protocol Trunking Market 2017-2021’, was based on detailed and reliable data gathered from an extensive research and an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. It provides a complete market and vendor landscape as well as a SWOT analysis of the key vendors and major factors that influence the market such as drivers, opportunities, and challenges. Session Initiation Protocol Trunking Market Driver: – The increasing adoption of cloud-based solutions is…

Guides & Tips

5 VoIP Features That Will Benefit Your Business

By Alex Pritsert November 4, 2017

The first VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services were launched in 2004, and since then the technology has come a long way with new VoIP features being added each year. VoIP allows users to make and receive free voice and video calls from and to anywhere over the Internet. In recent years VoIP providers have discovered increasingly innovative uses for VoIP technology that are helping all size businesses to be more productive, scalable and cost-efficient simultaneously. Here are the five innovative VoIP features that your business should consider: 1. Interactive voice recognition Whenever you call a company and are greeted by a pre-recorded voice asking you to select the reason for your call, it means company uses an interactive menu based on a VoIP system. Interactive VoIP menus have integrated this voice recognition software to provide a more intuitive means for users to choose options. Very soon, you will be…