Telegram, Viber, Skype, or Zoom are enough if you want to connect with friends from another region. In this case, you can choose tools that suit all interlocutors. But it is better to use VoIP telephony for remote work, communication with foreign institutions, or new contacts. Why?
It’s comfortable. For example, you call a new friend and wonder if he uses a popular messenger. The system first directs the call to a conditional WhatsApp. The service automatically transfers the call to a mobile or landline phone if the subscriber is unavailable.
Package of additional services. For example, call forwarding, conversation recording, or integration with various CRM applications and other programs. This is convenient if you work from home and often communicate with clients and customers. You can set up intelligent forwarding – if you do not have time to answer a client’s call to a corporate number, it will be directed to your mobile. Or, on the contrary, they will transfer the client to voicemail during non-working hours.
Cloud telephony applications allow you to share files, send text alerts to customers, and set up callbacks.
Functionality is helpful in everyday life. For example, you are waiting for a call from the airline regarding flight status or confirmation of enrollment from a foreign university. You can’t miss a call, but you can only sometimes be in touch. The VoIP system will direct the caller to voicemail, so you don’t miss a message.
If you need to make frequent outgoing calls, cloud telephony can help you save money. For many regions, providers set reduced rates, so it’s realistic to spend only 50 kopecks on a short call to the USA and meet 100 rubles per month.
VoIP operators are constantly testing new business models to keep costs down. For example, they offer to watch commercials in exchange for free minutes. In this case, the cost of calls can be reduced to zero. Such techniques help operators save money. But their costs are already lower than those of conventional providers because they optimize data during transmission and use direct communication channels without intermediaries. On the contrary, roaming has several levels of intermediaries, each of which takes its own commission.
How Is Telephony Changing During The Pandemic?
Due to the pandemic, the demand for VoIP systems has increased. Cloud telephony is needed, first of all, by companies and entrepreneurs who work remotely. By 2020, most have already abandoned landline phones, and solving work issues on a mobile phone was only sometimes convenient.
In addition, at home, the mobile network often malfunctions – the connection disappears, and negotiations fail. No one plans to return to analog telephony. Instead, many are switching to VoIP. Now it has the same necessary attributes of a home office as a CRM system, a video conferencing service, and a reliable VPN.
It is not yet clear how long the pandemic will last, but it is already clear that it will affect communications for a long time. People will be less likely to travel internationally, so issues will more often have to be resolved by phone. Many people use instant messengers and video conferencing applications regularly, but now they are indispensable. Moreover, digital communication services are becoming the new normal due to the deep crisis that has gripped all offline industries. Even the most conservative user groups turn to them. This also applies to IP telephony, which was previously considered a service exclusively for corporate clients or prominent business people, and is now becoming a mass product.
Most of the services we use today are virtual: we store documents and photos in the clouds and send messages via instant messengers and social networks. Cloud systems are accessed by all devices connected to the network, from smartphones and laptops to smart refrigerators and speakers with a voice assistant. So VoIP is the technology of the present, which is likely to migrate into the future. The global market for VoIP solutions is expected to grow to $140 billion by 2021.
The fastest-growing industry is mobile VoIP systems, including services for international calls. Most likely, analysts will adjust their forecasts – due to the pandemic, cloud telephony is in increasing demand, and companies will increasingly switch to remote work in the future. There are already hundreds of operators in the country that offer cloud telephony services, and the number of users reaches tens of millions. Both large providers like MTS and small companies with experimental business models provide services.
