Think Twice Before Changing your Telephony or Internet

Read this article before making your mind up about switching your providers, as you may get caught out or pulled into a deal or contract you don’t want to be in.

Recently, we have had a number of clients who have made changes to their telephone systems and in the process of doing so they have also changed their Internet provider. These days there is such a large number of providers with varying offers to entice you but don’t be fooled, they are not all offering the same service.There are a couple of things to think about when choosing a new Internet provider, such as:

• Broadband, Fast or Super-Fast Internet are just generic terms. In reality, the Internet speeds delivered to you may, in fact, be slower than your current provider. This is because the cheaper providers “congest” their own connections with many other businesses, like yours, in order to reduce costs – and in return, this reduces your Internet speed. These providers bargain on the fact that not everyone will be trying to use the connection at the same time, and unfortunately this is often not the case giving you a much slower service.
• When you change your Internet provider your external address will also change – much like it does when you move houses. If you have your own email system like Microsoft Exchange or if you have remote access systems, all of your pointers from the outside world will change and none of this data will be able to be delivered into your system. If you do go ahead with a change of Internet providers, you MUST let your IT provider know a few days in advance so that they can update your address records.

One of the key targets for providers at the moment is converting businesses to a SIP or phone line(s) over an Internet connection.

Usually what happens is a rep or service person will come in and tell you how much money you can save by moving your phone line(s) to a SIP connection. SIP simply means running your phone lines over an internet connection and it is definitely a lot cheaper with a monthly line rental of around $12 per line as opposed to about $60 for a standard line BUT there are some things to be wary of with this, such as:

• If you run an 0800 number make sure it’s included. Often when you have a SIP line, your clients can still end up paying for making the 0800 call.
• Make sure you check the “out” clauses. There is at least one provider that we have seen who has cancellation fees of anything from $2000 to $4000.
• If cell phones are included in the deal, make sure you ask if they are Parallel Imports or not.
• And this is the BIGGEST ISSUE: If you are running your business lines over the Internet, then you have a high risk of having to put up with VERY POOR call quality, especially if you are running on a Standard or Fast Broadband connection.

Your voice is no different to any other traffic on that line and it is subject to interference from whatever other users in your business are doing. This can become an issue if one of your staff is doing some online learning with video and a voice call comes in, the call quality is likely to be terrible.

The reason this happens is because these standard type Internet connections cannot recognise voice data or provide a guaranteed path for voice traffic - this is called “Quality of Service” or QOS. A line with QOS will guarantee that any voice traffic, at any time, will always get a certain portion of your Internet connection, meaning general Internet browsing, email etc. will get the rest.

You can easily tell when talking to people who have SIP lines over these bad connections, as they often have a lower volume, there may be a lag in the conversation, or you will probably only be able to understand three or four words out of every five spoken!

While you may get away with this kind of connection if you are a very small business with low volume calling, you won’t if you are a larger business with a high call volume in which you really need to be on a UFB connection with Quality of Service for voice implemented in the connection.

If you are looking at making any sort of changes to your business Internet connection, whether it is for Telephony or just for your Internet browsing, give us a call and have a conversation with your Account Manager or Onsite Technician about the best options for your business. 

It might just save you a lot of time, money and problems!