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XRX Voice Cloud-Based IP Phones
Increase your customer calls and reduce your business workload.
Many businesses have already migrated to a VoIP as a Service (VaaS) solution and our customers are really happy with the results.
A reliable phone system is essential for any business. As ISDN phone lines are being switched off, a cloud phone solution is now the way to ensure your business keeps up with customer expectations, and equips your employees with the tools they need, whether in the office or working remotely.
Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP, is the way you achieve a voice-over IP (VoIP). Many businesses see massive cost savings when switching from ISDN to SIP. Not only is it cheaper to operate online versus over copper wire, but businesses are also able to add and remove lines in response to customer requirements and demands. That means there is no paying for lines you don’t need.
When VOIP first debuted, it was based on a dial-up internet connection which was unreliable and meant that landline calls were superior – VoIP was beset by poor audio quality and a high drop rate. However, with modern internet speeds, including NBN, VoIP phone systems far surpass landline connectivity in quality and innovation.
XRX Voice Enquiries
An Overview of VoIP as a Service
VoIP as a service goes one step further and allows your business to ditch on-premise physical or software PBXs. Instead, you can use a managed cloud-based solution where the VoIP equipment, servers and services are all hosted and maintained by XRX Voice, who take care of your calls, voice features and technical support.
The VoIP as a Service design model can save your business from the expense of investing in the actual voice equipment and the unnecessary burden on your IT team to maintain and support your voice platform.
Top 10 Benefits of VoIP as a Service (VaaS)
1. Cheaper Calls
Both national and international calls can be sent over the Public Internet at a fraction of the cost. Call savings are on average 40% (when compared to analogue) and companies with high international calls can save considerably more.
2. No Upfront Costs
Save your business from the upfront expense of investing in the actual VoIP equipment.
3. Flexible Pricing
Pay a fixed monthly fee with no surprise costs
4. Cost Consistency
You pay a fixed fee per line per month so there are no nasty surprises
5. Greater Reliability
The hosted VoIP providers' cloud will usually be located in a number of diverse data centres on different physical and virtual IP PBXs with near-instant failover should issues arise.
6. Fast Provisioning
VoIP allows you to add additional phone lines easily within minutes via a provisioning portal.
7. Scalability
If your business experiences changes in staff numbers or you experience growth you can add or remove phone lines within minutes.
8. Additional Features
A multitude of features such as voicemail, call divert, hunt groups, Automated Call Distribution, Video Conferencing, and Chat.
9. Management Simplification
Remove the unnecessary burden on your IT team to maintain and support the VoIP platform. Leave the heavy lifting to the Provider and you use a simple remote portal for the simple management tasks.
10. Equipment Reduction
The only equipment you need in your business locations are physical VoIP phone handsets or you can use VoIP software (SIP client) on local computers/laptops.
How does VoIP work?
- When you use VoIP, your voice is converted into digital information which is then transmitted in as data over the internet.
- VoIP bypasses the national landline network’s copper wire by using data packets of information (usually audio) transmitted across a network. These IP packets are received over the packet-switched network and unpacked as the voice you hear through your VoIP endpoint (the technical term for a VoIP desktop phone) VoIP mobile phone, softphone application (VoIP Software), or other receivers.
- Mobile phones operate calls through connection to the PSTN, maintained via a terrestrial network of base stations.
- For business phone systems, a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) refers to the main piece of tech that routes all your calls, using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) in SIP trunks to make those connections. Modern PBXs are also called IP PBXs to indicate they use VoIP, rather than analogue connections (although now this is often assumed).
- Your PBX can be a physical bit of hardware, run and maintained by you (or your IT department); however, with modern cloud solutions, your VoIP provider can usually run your PBX via the cloud – essentially a phone system combined with Software as a Service (SaaS). This allows you to control your system with a personal online control panel, resulting in instant access to your add-ons and personal features, as well as a real-time overview of your business telecoms.
Components of VoIP as a Service (VaaS)
Listed below are the various components required for a hosted ‘VoIP as a Service solution.
1. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
SIP is the IP protocol used to transport voice traffic over an IP network thus allowing users to make voice and video calls mostly for free over the Internet or a private network. This protocol is used by VoIP phones to communicate to the IP PBX for call registration and call setup/call teardown.
You may notice that many VoIP devices such as VoIP phones are also called SIP phones. The term VoIP and SIP do tend to be used interchangeably to describe the phones/handset.
2. Real Time Protocol (RTP)
RTP is the protocol that is used to transport the actual voice data over the network and works hand-in-hand with SIP that is used to register the phones and setup/tear down the calls
3. SIP Phone (aka VoIP Phone)
The SIP phone is the physical phone that sits on the users' desks. Rather than connecting to the legacy BT wall socket it instead connects to the LAN switch. When booted up, the SIP phone uses the SIP protocol to register its number with the cloud PBX and confirm it is online for calls.
There is a huge selection of SIP phones on the market today. At present we recommend the Cisco SIP phone range as they are extremely stable and offer excellent call quality and user overall experience.
4. SIP Client (aka SoftPhone Client)
A SIP client is available for locations that do not require a physical phone. This is SIP software that runs on a PC or Mac to simulate a phone allowing inbound/outbound calls and all the same additional features possible with a physical phone handset.
Most users still prefer a physical phone but for hot-desking or locations that are hardly used then a softphone client is an excellent choice.
5. Local Area Network (LAN)
You can simply plug your new VoIP phones into your LAN switch and away you go. Ideally, your LAN switches will have 2 features to get the best out of your VoIP service.
Using ‘managed’ switches rather than ‘un-managed’ switches can allow the LAN infrastructure to be configured to prioritise voice and video traffic using Class of Service (CoS). We can fully assist you with this aspect should you need it.
The PoE (Power over Ethernet) feature allows your VoIP phones to obtain power from the LAN network cable rather than needing an additional power supply. This is an excellent feature that we recommend to your current and future switches support.
6. Wide Area Network (WAN)
Each of your sites should have a good connection to the Public Internet or a Private MPLS network (more on this later) to ensure enough bandwidth for your voice and video conferencing traffic.
Your network provider should configure Quality of Service (QoS) on the WAN router to prioritise the voice and video traffic as it exits the router. We perform this by default for all our customers.
7. VoIP Cloud Provider
The VoIP Cloud Provider hosts the VoIP equipment on their own network and is responsible for the management and support of the entire VoIP platform. If there are any issues you would report them to the provider rather than troubleshoot yourself. You are responsible only for simple admin tasks and provisioning orders for new services/phones via the providers portal.
8. VoIP PBX
Your SIP Phones or SIP clients register with the Cloud Provider’s VoIP PBX to obtain their number and the establishment of all calls is via the Cloud Providers platform.
Models of VoIP as a Service
There are two main models of VoIP as a Service to consider depending on your business needs:
1. Public Internet VaaS
Businesses that make mostly external voice and video calls rather than site-to-site should consider this model as it is quick to provision and has all the features you will need.
2. Private Network VaaS
If your company has multiple sites that will communicate with each other for voice and video, then a cloud-hosted VoIP solution on a private MPLS network is highly recommended. All of your company's site-to-site calls and video conferencing data traverses a private high-speed MPLS network rather than using the Public Internet which allows for better overall voice and video performance, monitoring and enhanced SLAs.
XRX VoIP as a Service for your business telecommunications
VoIP as a Service (VaaS) is the way forward for businesses to enjoy reduced call costs, increased flexibility, scalability, simplified management plus additional call features such as chat and video conferencing.
Understanding VoIP as a Service is an important first step towards making a more informed decision for your future voice requirements.
VOICE & VOIP Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Hunt Group?
Hunt Groups are useful for businesses that don't require a call centre solution or lots of functionality, hunt groups efficiently distribute calls received by a single number amongst a group of users.
Hunt Group Features include:
- Call waiting
- Call forwarding
- Custom ring back
- Pre-alerting announcement
Time of day routing is included with optional voicemail add on if required.
What is Call Centre Queues (CCaaS)?
With all the core features of hunt groups, call centres go even further with announcements, on-hold music, queueing and flexible add ons to help businesses scale to their call demands.
The key difference between call centre queue levels are the number of calls that can queue at any one time:
Basic queue - 25 calls per queue
Enhanced queue - 50 calls per queue
Premium queue - 525 calls per queue
What is IVR?
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) reduces the need for end-users to transfer calls by allowing the caller to choose the department or person they want to speak to.
Features include:
- Multi-tier choices
- Call forwarding selective
- Business hours rules
- After hours rules
- Holiday rules
What are Inbound services (13/1300/1800/0800/0508/ITFS)?
- These services provide a universal non-geographic dial-in number and the enterprise is charged for calls to these inbound numbers.
- If the call is then answered by an end-user, hunt group, call centre or IVR, there are no further charges.
- Alternatively, if the call is directed to an external number, that is charged as an additional call in addition to the initial inbound call.
What are Call recording Options?
- Support customer service, legal and training requirements with flexible call recording.
- Best suited for contact centres, legal, medical and any business with compliance needs.
What is CRM integration?
CRM integration allows callers to be detected, looked up in a CRM system and details about the caller to be delivered to the user in a screen pop, or even automatically open a customer record. End-users install the Go Integrator plugin to benefit from this functionality.
What is the Receptionist web app?
The Receptionist Web App is the perfect tool for receptionists or office managers who need to screen and manage calls.
Users can transfer a call efficiently just by clicking the destination in the contact list, there's no need to remember individual extensions.
What is the Softphone add on - the Access4 Communicator
The Softphone add on is free for executive and collaboration service pack users, Communicator enables Unified Collaboration (UC) by bringing together powerful services:
- Instant messaging and group chat
- Presence
- Voice and video calling
- Multi-party voice and video conferencing
- Real-time desktop sharing
Communicator is available on PC, Mac, iOS and Android devices.
What are DID Numbers?
When you make the move to SASBOSS you will usually have a set of phone numbers you want to bring across. You can order new numbers from SASBOSS too.
DID products include:
- Individual non-consecutive numbers.
- A range of 10 or 100 consecutive numbers.
- 1300 and 1800 numbers.
- International toll free.
- Mobile numbers.
What are Mobile DID numbers?
Mobile numbers can give you additional flexibility like:
- Using the number as a termination point (eg. for inbound calls answer on a queue, IVR or endpoint).
- Displaying the number when outbound calling using calling line id (CLID).