Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the revolutionary business technology that allows users to initiate calls over internet connections, has allowed for transaction efficiency between consumers and businesses in many ways.
We know that communication is the lifeblood of any business. And in many ways, VoIP technology has changed the way business is conducted in the 21st century.
So, why is VoIP so important to businesses today? And what is VoIP QoS a must-have for any business looking to stay competitive?
VoIP By the Numbers
It’s important to understand why VoIP has cemented itself as the go-to solution for modern business communications.
First, VoIP technology has expanded in industry use significantly within the last decade. According to data statistics compiled by Statista, business-centric VoIP lines increased from 6.2 million to over 41.6 million between 2010 and 2018.
Why? Because VoIP technology allows businesses to cut down on unnecessary communication times. Small and medium-sized businesses and corporations can shave over 32 minutes of call minutes off of their customer service interactions every day by using VoIP.
And this statistic is especially true when a business fully transitions its communication services from analog technology and landline service to fully digital communication solutions like VoIP.
A business saving over 32 minutes every day on customer services calls may not sound significant, but the savings can add up in the long run. Shaving 32 minutes off of daily business customer service call times adds up to 194.6 minutes per year or eight days.
In other words, customers, vendors, and business partners are reaching their intended party on the first call attempt instead of being put on hold or rerouted.
For a business of any size, cutting eight days of calling time from their annual budget can save significant amounts of money. However, this does not mean that VoIP technology does not have some room for improvement.
Congestion, Competition, and Quality Issues
VoIP communication lines are sometimes plagued by severe network congestion problems and competition with residential and home-office VoIP networks. In such situations, your business needs to prioritize VoIP network traffic when necessary.
And it is also important to remember that not every VoIP service provider offers equally reliable or quality service. Some calls may still have delays, unpredictable and unexpected one-way or two-way silences, audio echoes, or distorted audio quality.
So, shaving eight days off your customer service call times may not be as beneficial to your business operations at first glance if you are encountering such issues.
One way to solve these issues is with VoIP QoS (Quality of Service).
Quality of services is a VoIP network optimization technology that can improve call quality, prioritize voice traffic as needed, and make calls sound crystal clear digitally.
So, before we explain VoIP QoS, how it improves call quality, and how to set it up, let’s briefly explain the basics of VoIP and QoS.
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What Is VoIP?
Voice over Internet Protocol is a digital technology that initially let anyone convert traditional analog phone calls into data signals transmitted over an internet connection.
An internet protocol (IP) address is a technological method upon which devices, computers, programs, and algorithms communicate with one another. When VoIP data calls are initiated, analog voice calls are digitally converted into packs of data signals.
When executing phone call communications, these packets of data signals subsequently travel over any public or private internet protocol network, like accessing email or a website.
Some consider VoIP to be the new alternative to traditional analog service telephone companies. And you can utilize VoIP over a cellular or analog landline as well, but you don’t need to have standard phone company service to use it.
The most critical benefit of VoIP is that it is a cost-effective method of handling an unlimited volume of calls.
What Is VoIP QoS?
QoS or Quality of Service is a digital network tool that lets businesses prioritize call traffic by dedicating specific network resources based on the type of device used and overall traffic.
With Quality of Service, your prioritized phone calls are going to get the necessary bandwidth they require to ensure high-quality audio calls. And the Quality of Service network tool will ensure this no matter what else might be happening on the network.
In the most basic terms, Quality of Service is designed to prioritize your business’ calls via a router to provide the highest quality audio service to your customers.
While VoIP is a revolutionary technological breakthrough in optimizing how much call volume a business can handle, it has a few drawbacks.
VoIP network technology can create audio echoes, voice distortion, queuing issues, communication lags, inadvertent dropped calls and other technical issues.
As previously mentioned, VoIP technology is predicated on packets of data signals arriving at their call destination in the correct queuing order of the First In, First Out network sequence. And severe queuing issues can occur if your business’ bandwidth use is excessive.
VoIP QoS can solve all of these issues and more. With VoIP QoS, you can increase the quality of calls that your business conducts via:
- Customer service and support
- Employee training and initial interviews
- Team meetings and conferences
- Sales webinars and demos
What QoS Standards Are Necessary to Optimize Voice Traffic Quality?
Configuring VoIP QoS will only take a few minutes for your business to implement on your routers.
Here are the voice traffic prioritization standards you should consider when implementing VoIP QoS into your communications systems:
Jitter should be minimized as much as possible. Jitter buffers incrementally add to end-to-end delay. And jitter buffers are usually adequate on delay variations that are under 100 ms.
ITU G.114 specifications should be under 150 ms to optimize one-way delay for voice traffic in real-time scenarios.
Default G.729 codec necessitates a data packet loss of under 1% to avoid audio quality errors. So, there shouldn’t be any data packet loss for VoIP.
3 Methods of Setting Up VoIP QoS
Your VoIP QoS network and router configuration will be unique. So, consider some of these implementation approaches for optimum voice traffic prioritization.
1. Designate DSCP 46 Traffic as High Priority
The Differentiated Service Code Point designation, specifically RTP packets DSCP 46, notifies network switches to honor such packets as a high priority.
2. Trust Mode
When applicable, initiate Trust Mode with the Strict Priority setting.
3. Prioritize Business Network Traffic By Type
Prioritize your business network traffic by type. By doing this, devices won’t take up valuable bandwidth.
Get in touch with Momentum today to discuss cloud communication solutions for your business.
