Don’t Forget Your POTS!

As More Companies Adopt VoIP, The Focus Remains on POTS

A recent In-stat report noted a trend that we at VoIP Supply have tried to make a best practice for all businesses making the move to VoIP – keeping POTS lines. David Lemelin, an analyst at In-Stat found in a recent study a persistent theme among VOIP adopters: They still hold onto traditional voice communications technology for a part of their operations. Traditional voice switching, known as Time Division Multiplexing, or TDM, still accounts for 44 percent of the voice lines in those 20 percent of U.S. business that have adopted VOIP, he said.

Why Should You Keep POTS Lines?

Here are just a few reasons why you should keep your POTS lines when leveraging VoIP:

• Failover: This one of the most important aspects to consider when switching to VoIP; what is your plan for communications if your network, or Internet connection goes down? By keeping POTS lines, you ensure that if your Internet or network connections “goes down” your customers can still reach you and you can still reach them.
• Quality of Service (QoS): There are numerous times that the QoS on your VoIP lines will not be acceptable or suitable for business communications. If you keep your POTS, you will be able to easily route calls over the PSTN, when and if that happens, ensuring a pleasureable calling experience for each party.
• Local Calling: If your business makes a number of local calls each day, you will probably not realize a cost savings by using VoIP for these calls; in fact, they might actually “cost more” if the quality of the calls is sub-par. In addition, local providers are continuing to reduce their per minute charges to compete with VoIP providers.

So for all of you thinking about making the switch to VoIP or buying a new ip based phone system, there is absolutely no reason that you should forget your POTS, that is until VoIP is suitable for mission critical communications, which is still a ways away.