Advantages of Internet Telephony for New and Growing Businesses

communication Written by PSTG 09 | 07 | 21 5 minute read

communication

Written by PSTG 09 | 07 | 21 5 minute read

In 2021, 90% of businesses stopped buying on-premise phone systems. If 82% of businesses reported cost savings when they moved to the cloud, will you be jumping on the internet telephony trend?

Think of cassette tapes and how we never use them - it’s all streaming now. This is the same with landline phones. Now internet telephony is the industry standard. In 2020, there were 34 million internet telephony users in the US alone. It’s increasingly popular, with the global subscription value of internet telephony services increasing to $204.8 billion in 2020.

So why are businesses turning to the service? What are the advantages of internet telephony for new and growing businesses?

Use these links to jump to relevant sections.

Why Internet Telephony?
The Advantages of Internet Telephony

Why Internet Telephony?

It’s a gamechanger for businesses - especially growing businesses. Being able to send and receive audio calls, video calls and messages from phone solutions is the next level of communication for businesses, guaranteeing a more flexible, scalable and agile communications methodology than traditional phones.

So what’s the business case for internet telephony?

By the end of 2021, 90% of businesses will stop buying on-premise phone systems.
Between 2010 and 2018, internet telephony users increased from 6.2 million to 41.6 million.
Average savings on communication costs can be anywhere from 30% to 50% as a result of internet telephony.
Internet telephony costs will decrease each year by 5%.

As you can see, for the small business it makes financial sense to at least research internet telephony solutions. Who knows what kind of beneficial services you could find?

To go into more detail, there are a number of different iterations of internet telephony, one of the most widely used of which is Voice over Internet Protocol.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

You might have heard the phrase internet telephony or VoIP - they’re usually used synonymously. However, in terms of the technical side of things, VoIP is a part of internet telephony as a whole, referring specifically to when software delivers voice calls over a network.

It’s a great example of internet telephony and part of the methodology most used by businesses. In fact, you may have used VoIP yourself without knowing it, as the following are all examples of the technology:

WhatsApp
Skype
Microsoft 365 Business Voice

Because VoIP and internet telephony is offered by specific modern software, kept up-to-date by service providers, it’s a highly integrative service - slotting nicely into your existing tech stack. It’s a technology that can save up to 90% of start-up communication costs for small businesses.

So what are the advantages of internet telephony?

The Advantages of Internet Telephony

Reduced Costs

Whether your business is just starting out or has grown to a fair size, one of the top considerations will always be the bottom line. While ‘money makes the world go round’ it’s always worth finding ways of keeping yours firmly in your pocket. Internet telephony is one way of doing that.

According to Startup, it costs around £1,600 to £1,900 a month for medium-sized businesses to utilise up to 60 landline phones. In comparison, an internet telephony solution would cost far less. For example, for 60 users, Microsoft 365 Business Voice would only cost £540 per month.

Because internet telephony solutions are delivered by vendors, it means a business can avoid the costs of installation, maintenance, updates, broken equipment - ones associated with and present for traditional phone systems.

Accessibility

Internet telephony solutions utilise the cloud to work, meaning that if you have an internet connection, business calls and video conferences are accessible from almost anywhere. With the recent adoption of remote working from countless businesses, this is an incredibly important benefit that will keep internet telephony at the top of the proverbial food chain for years to come.

With smartphones, telephony apps can be downloaded and users can even access calls and meetings on their personal devices, providing the remote accessibility that the modern business needs in order to remain flexible and in touch.

Scalability

Businesses will already have an existing infrastructure - and they’re not looking to reinvent the wheel. With its cloud-based structure and portability, internet telephony solutions easily integrate and grow with the business.

Hardware has to be fixed, updated or replaced in-house. Internet telephony isn’t constrained by these limitations. The vendor updates the software on their end and provides you with additional modules or services based on your growing needs.

For example, growing businesses might be acquiring new employees and so need to increase their subscription size. This is easily done at the touch of a button, whereas using traditional phone systems means buying new hardware.

Internet telephony is just one aspect of developing a smarter business communications methodology, one that benefits your entire business and proactively supports you in your needs. To find out more about these kinds of communication, download our guide.

A Smarter Approach To Business Communications

Now more than ever, businesses are looking to remain in touch with both internal and external stakeholders. The coronavirus pandemic taught us that without the right tech, we’re severely limited in the ways we can communicate. Our guide seeks to help you improve your approach to communication, now and in the future. It covers: