With more and more services springing up offering telephony services over your broadband connection, it’s never been easier to cut the costs of your telephone service or even just your home phone bill. Online service providers such as Skype and Jajah have vastly improved their call quality and service availability. VoIP now supports conference calls, video calls, voicemail, call queuing, SMS messaging and call waiting. When combined with software provided by third party vendors, a full call centre with 30 or more agents can be set up in a matter of hours and all without any special line or service from BT.

A traditional system from BT costs the average business around £60 a month, providing only 2 lines. In comparison a 30 line system based on Skype prices up at £400 for initial software purchase, a fairly modern computer to run it on and then it’s just the cost of your calls. Skype international rates are a fraction of BT’s but local rates are not that different. However, given the saving on line rental it will probably work out cheaper; especially if you’re using many lines.

VoIP is much easier on small businesses as there’s no constant monthly outgoings as well as being cheaper in the long run. You also end up with a lot more control over how you run your virtual PBX system. Agents can be placed all around the world yet the system can behave like they’re in one room.

One place to be weary of IP telephony is calling less developed countries. Slow internet gateways at their end tend to lead to flaky voice quality.

Internal VoIP systems from Digium and Toshiba are also a very useful tool. They eliminate the need to maintain different voice and data networks. Call costs can also be reduced by linking into internet telephony providers.

VoIP incoming numbers also provide a great tool for people who travel a lot. You can be anywhere in the world but be reachable on a number local to which ever country you pick. You can even have multiple numbers in different countries, all while avoiding expensive mobile roaming rates.

There are also a number of services designed to bypass expensive mobile operator call and roaming costs. EQO-Mobile, Skype, Jajah and Fring are some prominent examples. These use data networks to route calls instead of the the phone network. 

If you feel your organisation could benefit from these services, please write to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for further information.