How the internet sends information, data and messages simultaneously to billions of people across the globe is mind boggling to most. And few understand how it actually works—what is underground, over ground, in the seabed; what PoPs are, IXPs, dark fibre, etc.

In what is seen as another blow for the traditional phone line, both Amazon and Google are reportedly investigating adding the ability to send and receive phone calls over their respective smart speakers. The capability would use voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology similar to services like Skype and VTSL’s business phone system.

Everything from graphic design software to accounting systems are now cloud based, and accessible by employees anywhere.  The benefits are clear, from greater collaboration to data backup and security. As such, over 90% of business rely on cloud services. But many people don’t know that office phone systems can also be cloud-based, and that there many advantages to moving your business telephony to the cloud.  Here are the top 6 ways in which your company will benefit by sending your office phone system into the stratosphere.

You may have read in the news last month, that to get the best mobile coverage in the UK, people are putting foreign SIM cards into their smart phones.  Why?  Because a foreign SIM card will search for any available network mast, not just those from a particular UK carrier. 

As with any technology, it helps to know what is out there before making a decision as to what to buy.  A business telephone system is no exception, and with all the options these days, having a good understanding of what is available will ensure your business gets the right thing.

I’ve always chosen the bigger company when given a choice about who to buy a service from.  My logic being: 1) economies of scale allow larger companies to offer a less expensive service, 2) the sheer volume of customers means bigger R&D budgets, 3) larger companies have more resource in the event something goes wrong, and 4) because they are bigger, there is more oversight, i.e. they are regulated, ‘watched’ and held publicly accountable by the media. 

In short, they are too big to fail or get it really wrong. 

You may have missed it two years ago when Harold Haas demonstrated the first commercially available Li-Fi system at the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The man who coined the term Li-fi itself showed the world how this emerging, and very cool technology, can actually work as a consumer product. But you won’t be able to miss it soon.  Li-Fi is about to go mainstream.

It is a small victory for businesses, homes, telecoms service providers like VTSL and just about everyone in the UK. BT is being forced to invest in their infrastructure (which it has under-invested in despite £3.03 billion in profits last year alone) or else Ofcom will force it to separate from Openreach.

Business communications technology has evolved drastically over the past decade. When we started VTSL nearly 10 years ago, there were only a handful of business VoIP providers in the UK, and VoIP was still considered a ‘new’ technology. Nowadays IP business phone systems are seen as standard. The same is true of several other communications innovations, all which have the power to improve efficiency and collaboration at your organisation—some of which you may not be using.

The term unified communications may sound rather mysterious, like some all-powerful method of magically unifying all your emails, phone calls and instant messaging into one effortlessly accessible place.