VoIP or PSTN/ISDN? Why Businesses Can’t Ignore This Question

Telephone services have in the past always used PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines. These provide a dedicated link between your business or home and the exchange. For businesses this often is provided via an ISDN line, which offers a higher-bandwidth connection that can support multiple calls.

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But all that is changing. VoIP services using the internet to make voice calls have been around for some time. More importantly, the PSTN and ISDN services will be switched off in 2025 as BT changes its whole network over to an IP-based model. This means that as a business you cannot ignore the change.

Moving to VoIP

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) means that you use the internet to make voice calls instead of a dedicated line. It’s the way that services like Skype work and for a long time was plagued by low call quality thanks to the variable services levels offered by internet connections. Now that most places have some sort of fibre connection, however, it offers a service that, in terms of reliability and quality, is a match for PSTN systems.

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This has led to a lot of companies like https://www.idtexpress.com/blog/2018/02/24/wholesale-voice-termination-explained springing up to offer wholesale voice termination services to businesses. This means that you have a much wider choice than before when it comes to deciding on who should deliver your voice call services.

VoIP Advantages

There are other advantages to VoIP too. The most noticeable is cost. If you have a PABX, then you are probably renting one or more ISDN lines to connect to the phone network. With VoIP all you need is a suitable internet connection. You can therefore save on line rental. You will also save on call costs too, as calls are generally cheaper – and may even be free in some circumstances – on VoIP networks.

There are also advantages in flexibility. With ISDN if you needed more capacity you would need to rent an extra line and incur more cost. VoIP makes it much easier to scale up to meet growing demand or to cope with seasonal spikes in demand.

If you have mobile employees or people working from home, then VoIP means that they can still make and receive calls on their office number, even if they are using their home phone or mobile.

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