Business Communications: Debunking Common Myths About VoIP and SIP

SMB owners, CFOs, operations managers, controllers, and IT directors are so busy with their work that they can gather erroneous information about emerging technologies, like VoIP or SIP. The rapid pace of technology means that information becomes old and outdated extremely quickly. For any technology like VoIP communications, which is just breaking out across North American businesses, prevailing thoughts can become myths within a year or two. This is certainly the case with SIP and VoIP.

A Brief Look at IP Telephony in 2015

More businesses than ever are switching over from their traditional phone systems to modern, IP Systems. Frost & Sullivan reported that 5 million businesses had installed IP telephony in 2013. They projected that 1.7 million businesses would switch to IP systems in 2014. They were wrong. They would have been more accurate by doubling that figure because 8 million businesses used IP telephony by the end of 2014 (Frost & Sullivan, Product Differentiation Crucial to Tap North American Hosted IP Telephony and UCC Services Market, 2015).

This kind of growth indicates that IP telephony — VoIP and SIP — has become more than an alternative; it has become the right choice.

CenterpointIT doubled its own growth rate last quarter to 40% year-over-year. We suspect there are tons of people out there looking for quality, trusted information about this evolving topic.

Myth: VoIP and SIP connect the business to phone lines

Most people think that VoIP is how the business phone system connects to phone lines. Technologies such as VoIP are used to connect phones to the phone system. SIP is a protocol that enables VoIP and is more widely used to manage multimedia communications. Telecoms have used SIP for awhile.

When a business chooses VoIP instead of Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM), the business is changing how its phones send and receive information to the phone system. So the switch to VoIP usually entails a cost for new IP phones and system.

If you think VoIP might be the right choice for your business, to save money and increase the quality of your interactions with clients, then try our 8-part series on VoIP Basics.

And get ready for upcoming posts about network infrastructure and what you might need to buy to support premium VoIP communications in your office