VoIP is a technology for sending phone calls over an IP network such as the internet. This is where the acronym comes from ‘Voice over IP’. Instead of using your telephone on a traditional analogue or digital network, your telephone can work over your normal internet connection.
It depends on your setup. For the average home user – very little changes. Most providers will simply give you an adaptor that allows you to use your existing telephone and it will run through the VoIP system. You can call out and people can call you on the same number. This assumes your provider ports your existing telephone number onto the VoIP system.
For a business user, when changing to VoIP, generally the equipment you use will change. You will change from using an existing analogue or digital phone to an IP phone. Your phone lines with Telstra will change to SIP lines with a SIP provider.
This is a very good question. Moving forward – generally, all phone conversations will become VoIP conversations. Existing telephone networks are starting to be shutdown. If you are on the NBN then you are given up to 18 months to move to VoIP or your existing connection will be disconnected. When you are choosing to go VoIP, most customers will switch over for one of these reasons:
This varies vastly from customer to customer. MBIT specialises in providing solutions that work well for the customer. For smaller customers, we generally recommend a hosted PBX. For larger customers, we generally recommend an onsite solution. This can change based on the customer’s requirements on redundancy, features, and costing.