Unified Communications VoIP – The Stars Have Finally Aligned

In the dim and distant past (well, maybe 25 years ago) the first commercial Voice Over Internet Protocol was by VocalTec. Allowing people to talk to each other using their computers, across the internet.

Once you got past the novelty, initial appeal was reducing what were at the time, relatively astronomical costs with calling abroad.

In the Beginning

Before we lived in a world where Unified VoIP Communications were not yet a reality we first had Skype and Vonage emerged as market leaders in the consumer world. Then video was added as internet speeds improved. Mobile providers began to grapple with commercial issues of VOIP on their mobile revenues.

Next SIP technology allowed business customers to reduce the cost of voice traffic. This was done by connecting an alternative to the traditional PSTN, to their PBX telephone system. The capability and functionality remained on site, on hardware with a high reliance on the system maintainer to manage moves and changes.

Becoming Unified

As a result the intelligence began to move from site, to the cloud, with customers offered elements of self-service and modest capital investment versus a traditional PBX. In addition as well as hugely simplified multi-site solutions.

However, despite many providers offering hosted communication platforms for some years now, its not always been a consistent, stable experience businesses demand and expect, with hugely variable quality of internet access at the core of many issues.

Finally, we’ve reached the point where cloud solutions are delivering the feature. These are rich and robust platforms businesses can base their company communications on – adaptable to the changing workplace, simple to deploy, and secure.  And now good quality, high speed internet access is now available to so many, whether fixed or mobile.

Unified VoIP Boost

Meanwhile the pandemic has unquestionably accelerated growth of unified communications. Dunedin IT have spent much of the last 18 months helping many customers migrate legacy solutions to provide the flexibility their mobile workforces now need. And above all retaining a consistent experience for their customers.

Other drivers we’ve seen have included reducing costs, sweating existing assets such as Microsoft Teams and the near-future switch off of PSTN services (including ISDN). We’ve also seen home-working demand some inventive mobile solution when locations have been challenging for the fixed line networks.

Unified Communications is here

Finally we can say communications are now truly unified and importantly, IT companies are leading the way as voice has become another application accessed over the company network rather than a standalone consideration.

Now conversations have moved on to adding value – compliant Call Recording, webchat, and conferencing are the topics for discussion now, where once they were around handset models and rackspace.

To conclude, in the world of communications, the question we’re left with is, as always, what next?

Calendar and Clock Count Down

Do more with your Phone Systems

The clock is ticking, in 2025 BT will have switched off all their analog services.

Whether you have a solution from us or thinking about upgrading, let us demonstrate Dunedin IT Voice Platform (3CX) and Microsoft Teams Direct Routing.

Book a digital workshop to find out more

Connect your data

Dunedin IT is in the business of helping your organisation collaborate and communicate. That means a robust IT infrastructure, integrated securely across your business and to the outside world.

Working with the leading networks in the country, our connectivity options allow us to offer complete solutions where you’ll have a single point of responsibility, support, and billing.

See our video and infographic on how Dunedin IT Mobility Solutions can benefit your organisation.