VoIP: The PC Phone Alternative

The PC phone is one of the largest telecommunication developments of the century. Cellular phones are nice, but they can be very expensive. Computer telephone or PC phones, now that is something to look into. It is estimated that approximately fifty percent of the world has a computer or uses a computer, through local libraries, schools, or friends and family member’s houses. That is a huge customer base. The PC phone has become the best technology tool that the business world has seen since the internet was created. As I said before cellular phones are nice, but expensive. In contrast, usually the only expense to using PC phone is the normal internet charge that is currently being paid for internet service.

Businesses have reduced their expenses enormously due to not having any type of telephone charges. Big corporations and firms make thousands of phone calls a day, some local and some long distance. PC phones offer them the opportunity to make all of these phone calls without spending their normal monthly charges for phone service and without paying long distance bills. Most of these companies already have internet access, so it is as simple as finding the right PC phone provider and downloading the software. From their you just begin entering numbers and talking.

You do have to be weary of certain countries that are charging fees for PC phone calls, whether they are inbound or outbound. Some countries governments actually make a profit off of the telecommunication systems they have in force, such as the telephone. Because of this, many of these countries governments have created fees that are charged to the inbound caller or the outbound caller, who ever originated the call, when it is a PC phone originated call.

Businesses with PC phone networks still have all of the same features that their regular phone companies had provided them. They still have call waiting and call forwarding. PC phones have messaging systems, conferencing capabilities, and multiple other features that the telephone providers offer. This is really appealing to companies, because they do not have to sacrifice their favorite features to get cheaper phone service providers with the same perks and more.

Businesses have been well informed of a few drawbacks of the PC phone. First, there is less protection against viruses and worms because there is no firewall to protect against them. This is a major issue for companies because if one computer gets a virus, it can easy and very rapidly be spread to the entire network, wiping out every computer system in the building or in an entire network area which could be several buildings, depending on how the network is setup

Even better the hackers of the world can gain access through most PC phone connections because of the way the provider has set up the service providing very little security against this type of crime. It makes it relatively easy to gain access to anything in a computer or group of computers. This could put the business in jeopardy if they do not notify anyone who could be fraud victim in a reasonable amount of time.

There are also a couple minor discrepancies that have been reported, but are being taken care of and becoming less frequent due to the changes. Companies have reported static and echoing both of which are results of speakers, microphone, and/or earpiece volume buttons being turned up to loud. Once, the volume buttons were properly fixed not to go loud enough to cause this, there have been very few cases of this. Major companies have also reported dropped calls. Most of these small problems have been solved and there are not as many complaints of this happening.

The biggest complaint from small businesses is that when the electricity goes out they have no way to accept or to make telephone calls. A lot of small businesses do not have back up generators to help them when the electricity goes out. Therefore, small businesses tend to report potential customer losses. Anyone, who knows much about small businesses, knows that they mainly survive on their level of customer service. So, if the customer is calling in and the phone rings a few times and then hangs up on them, of course they are not going to be as interested in doing business with this particular company.

Telephone companies do not like the PC phones at all due to the loss of business they have suffered. This loss will get worse as the problems that are currently being reported to PC phone providers get fixed. Many individuals will begin using PC phone services instead of their landlines, because of the cost savings and the fact that they don’t have to lose anything to get this service.