VoIP has been widely accepted by the business community because of the positive feedback from many companies who have already switched to the technology. However, just like any other forms of technology, there are also drawbacks that surround VoIP and T1 business solutions that work over it. Those who have enjoyed using VoIP may have already encountered these issues but successfully solved it, or at least had some workarounds. For small businesses though, where resources are not as abundant, it is important to be aware of these disadvantages to come up with back up plans to avoid further problems.
- VoIP relies on the Internet, and Internet connectivity relies on power. Therefore, if there is power outage, you will not be able to make and receive calls through the VoIP network. Though it is quite easy to resolve, adding backup power supply would mean additional cost to your infrastructure. However, if this additional expense justifies the possible overall loss that your business will incur in the event of an outage, you definitely should go for it.
- Emergency calls, specifically 911 calls, are still forming a waterloo for VoIP systems. Some providers have already thought of some work around for this. However, when there is an emergency, reliability of the phone line is critical. There are cases when 911 calls from VoIP still failed to connect or had poor quality. Hence, it would be advisable to still keep a standard phone line for emergency calls. This would be additional overhead cost to your business, though.
- Quality of phone calls through VoIP has greatly improved over the years. However, there are still instances when quality drops and the line gets all choppy and noisy. There may also be some delay in the transmission of the voice signal, which is quite annoying especially for customers. Hence, if you need impeccably clear line quality from the phone line, you need to do thorough research on the best provider that can offer and guarantee this.
- Security is another major issue when it comes to VoIP. When VoIP was first starting, existing firewalls find it difficult to protect and secure the network if internet telephony is to be used. These days, enhancements to different security solutions were implemented, yet there are still vulnerability issues existing which are associated to VoIP. VoIP is a very helpful and beneficial telecommunications solution for your business. You just need to be aware of these drawbacks and should be able to find ways on how to minimize the impact of these to your productivity and profitability.