Digital Voice vs CloudComms: what's best for your business

If you’ve been keeping up to date with our regular articles on the Great British Switch Off, you’ll know that over the next few years the way we all communicate will change forever.

Those old-fashioned copper telephone lines are set to be replaced by something new, built upon modern data connections.

If your business is still using an old landline or ISDN connection, now is the time to think about the future of your communications. And for most businesses, that will mean choosing a Digital Voice or CloudComms solution.

But how do you decide which of these choices is right for you? Here’s the rundown.

Digital Voice

First of all, what is Digital Voice exactly? Without getting into the behind-the-scenes technical stuff, this is actually fairly straightforward.

In many ways, Digital Voice is a like for like replacement for those soon-to-be-gone copper landlines. The only thing you need to be aware of from an end-user perspective is that, instead of plugging your phone into a master socket, you’ll plug it into the back of your router.

Now, that’s an important point because the way broadband is sold in the UK is already changing. Full fibre and SoGEA connections come without line rental, which means no traditional telephone connectivity is possible. (We’ll be launching our new business SoGEA packages soon, so keep an eye out for more on that in a future article).

But those modern connections are more than capable of carrying high quality voice calls – and that’s exactly what they do with Digital Voice.

When it comes to making and receiving calls, using Digital Voice should be very similar to using a landline. And if that’s what your business needs – a single or small number of fixed lines – Digital Voice is an ideal solution.

It’s better value than traditional business landlines, calls tend to be higher quality and other than that there is little to no difference.

If you haven’t already taken out a modern full fibre or SoGEA broadband connection, take a look at our available options here and remember to add the Digital Voice option to keep your all-important voice communications.

CloudComms

If all you need is that straight replacement for your business calls, then Digital Voice is a great alternative.

But there is another option, one that offers high quality voice calls and so much more.

First off, as the name implies, CloudComms makes use of the cloud to carry your calls (and other communications – we’ll get back to this). That means, like Digital Voice, it relies on an internet connection rather than a phone line.

But that cloud element is very important. Because all the call routing takes place from a virtual location in the cloud. And that means you can take CloudComms with you, wherever you have an internet connection in fact.

So why be restricted to your office or home when you can make and receive calls from virtually any location? CloudComms gives you the ability to take your business communications – and your number – with you wherever you go.

And that office phone? Well, it’s great when you’re at your desk, but sometimes it’s just more convenient to take your calls on your mobile or even your laptop. Aside from the obvious business continuity benefits (no in-office equipment to break down, the ability to make and receive calls from any location), the sheer flexibility of CloudComms means you can always be dialled into your business comms.

With CloudComms you can pay per user, which means as your business grows – or you’d like to reduce the number of active users – you can scale up or down as needed.

But what about that ‘other communications’ we mentioned earlier? One of the best features of CloudComms is the way it integrates with your other systems for a true unified communications solution – from voice to email, webchat and more.

Other benefits of CloudComms include free internal calls, and 24/7 management portal access – for adding and removing users, accessing call logs and recordings, changing hunt groups and a host of other features.

Visit our site to read about more of the benefits of CloudComms.

No matter the size and nature of your business, there is a solution to meet your unique communication needs. From high quality Digital Voice to replace aging analogue systems to fully featured CloudComms to take your communication and collaboration to another level.

To discuss the best option for your business, call us on 01706 902583 or follow the links here.