We hear a lot of 'Buzz' words like 'SIP' and 'VOIP' but many people do not understand what they are or how they will affect your life. I am writing this blog article to explain what this 'Jargon' means in simple terms.

WHAT IS DATA FIBRE?

Unless you are on top of a mountain in Scotland, the wildes of Wales or in an unfortunate 'Black' spot for broadband coverage then many of us will be seeing the roll out of Fibre 'like' products such as BT 'Infiniti' or Virgin Fibre. The reason I say 'Like' is because these broadband connections may be delivered to your homes as pure 'glass' fibre cables (FTTP - Fibre to the premises) or the fibre may be connected to your local telephone cabinet which services your street and you connect the rest of the way over your normal copper telephone line (FTTC - Fibre to the cabinet).  

Whichever fibre or fibre 'like' connection you have the upside is that you are in a growing number that can 'surf' the internet at speed, ask Google or Alexa devices to do your bidding and generally fit more into your day as web pages now load quicker and files download without the need for a single 'thumb twiddle'. 

WHY USE VOIP TO WORK FROM HOME? 

With this new 'Motorway' of broadband connectivity comes with it some great opportunities and these are mainly in the form of communications which  give you greater flexibility and freedom. Office 365 or Google 'Gsuite' for example allow teachers and office workers to spend their 'Inset' days at home as they can now access documents freely. This flexibility may extend to people with growing families who want to work but need this kind of fexibility to drop off and pick up the kids from school and work in between. A Stanford two year study showed that there was an "Astonishing Productivity Boost of Working From Home" - we agree!

HOW CAN VOIP SAVE YOU MONEY?

 Which brings us to the most literal flexibility form of communication which is Voice. VOIP (Voice over IP) or 'Voice over the internet' for us mere mortals uses a VoiP phone. The VoiP phone is ostensibly a 'phone shaped' mini computer just programmed for connecting to a voice server somewhere and it takes the sounds that you make in the handset, turns them into data packets and sends them to the other person's phone at the other end. Because it does this over the internet and not down copper wires (for most of its journey) then this saves money for the provider and you.

HOW CAN USING VOIP CAN SAVE YOU TIME?

 Reduction in cost is not the main event however for most people. These new VOIP phones can offer the home worker one or more telephone numbers that can call into this new desk phone. They can have the same voice menu setup that big companies have i.e. 'press 1 for this' 'press 2 for that' and they can also now have 'mobile phone twinning'. 

WHAT IS MOBILE PHONE TWINNING?

Mobile phone twinning is when a client rings your office landline number and it allows your new desk phone to ring but it can also simultaneously call your mobile phone as well- genius! Whichever phone picks up first gets the call allowing you freedom from your desk which is an important factor for small business. 

If 'Twinning' is not your bag you can setup a Voicemail to email service which takes the voicemail and emails the sound file to your mobile for you so that you may call back at your earliest convenience i.e when the kids have stopped throwing things at each other in the back of the car.

 (Now the slightly salesy bit!) This is the reason we have developed the 'CallConX' product as there is no setup just 'plug and play' and off you go! 

WHAT DO YOU GET WITH YOUR CALLCONX PACKAGE?

* You pay one price for the year currently £203.33 +vat ("£244 and no more")

* You can choose a telephone number from any town in the UK. 

* You get mobile phone twinning, voicemail to email and voice menus should you require it.

Also , You get unlimited UK landline and mobile calls for one year. Thats right for 'one year' with no bills! We have done this as we understand that when starting your 'sole trader' business you have a lot to worry about and so having no phone bill at the end of the month no matter how many calls you receive or make is just one less thing you have to worry about. We are also available on our website livechat if you need help and we are real people in a real office in Cheshire in the UK! 

 If you are just reading this to understand what VOIP is and you don't want a phone then that's fine too but a new age of communication is upon us and you are now aware of the possibilities that this can bring so 'carpe diem' (Seize the day) and as BT used to say 'It's good to talk'.

[picture thanks to Tom Goskar' website]