Local Phone Service Info That You May Find Useful
Local phone service as we know it has been changing rapidly. It used to be provided by copper wires. Three changes are taking place:
- Analog phone service (POTS) is being replaced by VoIP or UCaaS options.
- Some SMBs are moving off of landlines and are only using cellphones. Other organizations are making extensive use of cellphones.
- Telco carriers are discontinuing the use of copper wires - replacing them with fiber. The landline replacement that they offer is digital or, in effect, VoIP even though they provide an analog handoff.
VoIP and UCaas options have become remarkably reliable over the years. However, if you have a poor quality internet connection, it can cause significantly degradation of your voice services. Clearly, if your internet is down, so is your VoIP and UCaaS. Some organizations use cellphones as backup for their UCaaS. If your internet connection has significant jitter or packet loss, your voice quality can degrad significantly; your voice service might even go down altogether.
Many organizations protect their voice services from poor quality internet by using SD-WAN. There are many different implementations of SD-WAN. Some implementations can actually correct voice problems caused by jitter or packet loss on a single internet circuit. However, better voice quality is obtained by using SD-WAN with 2 or more internet circuits. For example, 2 or 3 of the following plugged into a SD-WAN service can offer the quality and reliability of an extremely reliable fiber circuit: a cable, DSL, cellular, or satellite circuit.
Many believe that latency destroys voice quality, and it can. However, the roughly 600 ms latency experienced using satellites in stationary orbits does not preclude high quality voice calls. Because of latency problems, many out-of-the-box VoIP systems are configured such that they won't work when they see high latencies. However, if the VoIP system is configured appropriately, you can have high quality voice with 600 ms latency with most not even noticing that there is a slight delay.
Building codes often require that POTS service be used for alarm and elevator lines. There are a number of options for replacing POTS service with service that has been certified to satisfy the code requirements. Contact us for options to satisfy your POTS replacement requirements. Even if your POTS lines have not yet been discontinued, you may find the charges for them have grown to where it's desirable to replace them now.
Read more about broadband phone service at VoIP De-Mystified. if you would prefer to compare prices from a bunch of local phone companies first, before deciding, try Choose and Order Local Phone Service.
| 
