Tired of expensive phone bills? Perhaps you’ve tried cutting down non-business calls and still find you’ve not made a dent in the phone bills? If so, its time you gave VoIP a thought. You could switch over to Hosted VoIP for small business because: 1. The voice clarity is astonishingly good, 2. The cost is very low when compared to your regular phone bills and in most cases, 3. It is just a matter of downloading and installing VoIP software onto an already existing computer or IPad. Voice over IP or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has made it possible to make local and international calls using internet. Every business today, has an email id which also means they have access to the internet. Internet therefore, is the connection between all businesses. All that was left to do was to use this media to communicate. When that happened, VoIP was born. Tools for quality VoIP for Business You can setup a VoIP communication with just the following tools: 1. Broadband - Reasonably high-speed internet connection (commonly known as broadband with speeds starting at 1Mbps) 2. Hardware - A computer with microphone and speakers (these days phone-to-internet devices are also available) 3. VoIP software (e.g. Skype) If you have the first two of the above tools, you can download and install the third (VoIP software). Before you download VoIP software, know that you can choose between FREE business VoIP software and PAID VoIP software. The former will obviously bombard you with adverts and the voice quality might not be all that impressive. Let’s examine each of the three tools required for Hosted VoIP: Broadband – You need a minimum speed of 500 Kbps (ideally 1Mbps and above). Anything less than 500Kbps will result is broken speech and too much lag time. Hardware – You may use your laptop/desktop/IPad or Tablet PC. Whatever you use, it needs a microphone and a speaker. These days, the market is also flooded with VoIP phones. These have the ability to directly connect to the internet via a standard broadband cable or Wi-Fi. VoIP Virtual Call Center Software – The right VoIP software (e.g. Skype) enables you to not only connect with people who might be connected to the internet when you make the call, it also enables you to dial cell phone and landline numbers. The latter usually requires a paid subscription. Limitations of Small Business Small Business VoIP No technology is perfect. Every person using Voice over IP or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) requires a broadband connection. So if you plan to telephonic conference using VoIP, be aware that every participant needs to have the above three tools. This limitation can be removed if you have a paid subscription. A paid subscription permits you to also dial a cell phone or landline connection. How does VoIP help small businesses? If all participants of a telephonic conversation are online, you can use VoIP to make a totally FREE telephone call (commonly called internet call). The participants could be located anywhere on the globe. So long as they are connected to the internet, their physical location is immaterial. The only payment you need to make is when you make calls to cell phone and landline numbers. Here too, with increasing number of people possessing a GPRS enabled Smartphone, you could make a VoIP call to the person’s cell phone thereby reducing your phone b ill to negligible amounts. Change over to VoIP for Business today.