Another advantage that IP Telephony offers aside from productivity improvements, customer service enhancement, and cost savings is mobility. Nowadays, employees are increasingly mobile. From contact or call center agents that work from remote sites, and from home offices in any location in the world that provides 24/7 services to regular traveling sales personnel, the concept of a 9 to 5 office desk job is dead. Customer expectations to reach anyone at anytime, are also increasing. Mobility is now a necessity for any communication system.

With IP Telephony, this can be effectively done and implemented. Call routing with IP Telephony is easily possible. For example, calls that come to agents that are logged as out of the office are routed to their cell phones. Smartphones and tablets that are being used today can be integrated to the system through IP telephony and act as an extension to the desk phone with regular features like transfer and conference call capabilities. This wireless integration is advantageous and cost-effective as the company does not have to purchase specific or specialized wireless handsets for traveling workers.

Going Mobile and Wireless

Users in an IP telephony system are highly mobile with the means to log in and access the same capabilities from anywhere as if they were working at their desks in their offices. The business would appear as a company that is available for contact and assistance to customers 24/7. The business’ employees are happy with mobility as they are not tied down to their desks and the customers are also happy as they are catered to quickly. The business can also set up IP telephony to manage high call volumes during peak times by quickly adding other employees regardless of their location to help.

The next step is going wireless. Wi-Fi networks are now being used anywhere, even in small establishments such as coffee shops. With wireless devices, IP telephony benefits can be taken beyond the wired network.

Factors to consider when going wireless

There are several factors to consider when going wireless with IP telephony. The first one is coverage. WLAN is a radio frequency network so physical environment affects the coverage capabilities of access points. This needs to be taken into account, as the business would not want users hitting dead zones while in the middle of a conversation. An assessment of how many users are in the location is needed to determine the bandwidth needed to ensure that application bandwidth requirements are met. The physical characteristics of the office and buildings have to be taken into consideration when designing WLAN and the number of wireless access points to install.

Another factor to consider is scalability. Scalability is increased through the use of access points. However there is a risk of interference when using too many access points. Load balancing is a tool that can be used to ensure that traffic is balanced or shared across access points. Load balancing can ensure that users are sent through the most available access point at a given time. Careful planning and tests should be done to ensure smooth call delivery.

Other factors to consider are service quality and solid security. When a Wi-Fi access point is overloaded, voice quality will suffer. A good plan is needed to ensure that this does not happen and good voice quality is maintained. Security is also very important. Authentication should be used to verify that the user is authorized to join the network.

Author Bio:

Michelle Patterson is an avid technology blogger and writes extensively about IP/VoIP and Unified Communication. She works with some leading companies to understand the trends of these modern communication technologies.