Content area
Full Text
Internet telephony offers firms unlimited local and long distance, and a chance to network phone systems and client-service apps as never before. Here are some of the pros and cons.
The four new letters that make the funny little new word are stasting to have a big impact on how firms communicate. VoIP, or Voiceover Internet Protocol, allows phone calls to be made over an IP network. "A call can be made over the Internet, instead of a public switched telephone network (PSTN)," says Jayna Bovre, IS director at Ft. Worth, Texas-based Weaver and Tidwell. "Because the call is digital, it opens up opportunities for businesses to integrate features that aren't easily available through PSTN." VoIP phone communications can he established with as few as two PC's connected to the Net, each with microphone and speakers, or with a USB telephone handset attached. "More often we're concerned with higher-end solutions involving a PBX (private branch eXchange), which is the local system used to connect the company's phones to the traditional PSTN," says Jeff Bohman, VP of Montgomery, Ala.-based Wilson Price Information Technology. "The IP-PBX receives a traditional telephone call, converts the call to a format compatible with the local computer network, and then delivers the call to an IP telephone set, PC, or similar device."
Reduced local and long distance charges, integration of a VoIP phone system with a firm's internal computer system and network, integration with e-mail systems and practice management systems, and the ability to reach any person in the firm regardless of where they're located are all touted as advantages of these systems. "I don't know a firm today that would implement a phone system that didn't include VoIP capability," says Jim Bourke, shareholder and director of firm technology at Red Bank, N.J.-based WithumSmith+Brown.
Buying In
Bovre believes that more accounting firms are turning to this technology in putt or in total, even to the point of replacing old phone systems. "The trade off is hig because of the advantages of VoIP, including flexibility, organizational efficiency, employee productivity, and avoiding tolls charged by traditional telephone service," she says. According In Geoff Smarada, senior voice engineer with P&N Technologies of Postlethwaite & Netterville in Baton Rouge, La. (a reseller of Cisco...