Best Business VoIP Solution

Identifying The Best Business VoIP Solution For Your Business
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kristen_Kiya]Kristen Kiya

Every Business has specific communication demands relating to the kind of service that they are providing, their vendors, clients etc. VoIP solution, however, helps solve all the requirements of the business houses. Business VoIP solution is tailor-made to provide a one-stop solution to the corporatist, Internet service providers as well as contact centers.

If VoIP termination service is used efficiently and creatively, it can help flourish your business. There are a cluster of business VoIP solution providers available in the present telecommunication sector. Selection of the best voice over IP solution provider can be made simpler by following the below mentioned simple guidelines.

What Accounts For Best Business VoIP Solution -
There are a number of factors which can help you to select the best VoIP call termination service.

1. Call tariff – Different VoIP providers offer different call tariff for transmitting the call. Always ensure that your provider is offering you the rates which are at par with the industry rates if not less. Even a cent difference would count once you start making long distance and international calls

2. Quality – Ask your VoIP provider for a test call in order to check the quality of service in live scenario. Quality can also be judged on the basis of average call duration rate, average success ratio and post duration delay. Higher the ACD and ASD and lower the PDD, better would be the quality. Also, if a provider has direct links with a Tier-1 operator the service would be of high quality

3. Ease of operation – A good voice over IP provider would try to integrate the IP telephony with the organizations communication structure with maximum ease and minimum discomfort

4. Initial professional training – There are few premium service providers who offer initial training to the corporatist who are using VoIP services for the first time, thereby enabling their client to achieve a certain level of comfort with this new technology

5. Features – One should ensure that the features like call conferencing, call waiting etc. that can be used to enhance the way the business operates are a part of the solution being offered

What is in it for ISP’s?
VoIP business opportunity can be utilized to the full extent by Internet service providers who can pre-set their existing service which is broadband connection with VoIP call termination service. This offers two advantages to the end consumer. Firstly, they no longer have to keep a tab on two different bills coming from two different providers. Secondly, they will get the additional benefit of getting these services from the provider at discounted rates, since it’s a bundled up deal. Moreover, residentials’ will find it easy to take the VoIP call service from a provider whom they already trust.

ISP’s can boost of this revolutionary upcoming technology to get new customers too, as it will give them the advantage of placing them on a different platform than their competitors.

Choose a different platform for your voip, visit: [http://www.icallglobe.com/businesssolutions.htm]VoIP Business Solutions offered by one of the best [http://www.icallglobe.com/solutions-for-isp.html]ISP Solution Providers

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristen_Kiya http://EzineArticles.com/?Identifying-The-Best-Business-VoIP-Solution-For-Your-Business&id=650073

Cut Your Business Overhead With VoIP

Business expenses play a significant role in impacting company profits and keeping these costs in line is crucial to the long term success of any venture.

With fuel prices rising, interest rates surging, and salaries escalating, many business managers are finding it increasingly difficult to contain costs without resorting to implementing higher prices for products and services. However, the new global economy warrants that businesses do everything in their power to hold prices in line otherwise an overseas competitor could quickly step in and offer the same service for less. So, just how can managers remain competitive against such difficulties? By replacing their traditional corporate phone system with a VoIP driven PBX system. Let’s examine how this new way of communicating is positively impacting the bottom line of companies across America.

Traditionally, company phone systems have been a costly, but necessary way for employees to keep in touch with each other as well as with their customers. These Private Branch eXchange or PBX phone systems were originally credited with helping to lower overhead costs for companies as they eliminated the need for separate phone lines for every employee at every location. Yet, costs for maintaining these systems have remained a significant part of the cost of doing business for small and medium sized businesses.

Until recently, businesses had no choice to help them reduce telephone related expenses: Enter Business VoIP.

Much like the internet telephony systems available to consumers in their homes, business VoIP services are springing up to serve small and medium sized businesses everywhere. Just like home phone connections, business VoIP calls are routed through internet wiring for a much cheaper alternative than the traditional phone system. Indeed, yearly cost savings averaging 50% are being realized by companies who have made the switch over to business VoIP.

With Business VoIP, providers have taken the traditional PBX systems and updated them for the 21st century. Gone is the need for a receptionist to screen and redirect calls, the VoIP PBX system can be set up to do that for you. Calls can be rerouted to different offices, to cell phones, to locations far a field. Furthermore, certain “extras” that could significantly add to the cost of monthly phone expenses are routinely incorporated into various Business VoIP packages including: call waiting, caller identification, three way calling, conference calling, and more. Important options such as voice mail forwarding to email account, typically not offered with traditional PBX systems, are one of several popular features of business internet telephony systems. A user friendly panel allows for easy web portal management permitting the Business VoIP manager [typically, an existing employee] to monitor the system and make changes quickly and efficiently.

In addition to the substantial month to month savings realized by Business VoIP users, start up costs for a VoIP PBX system are as much as 90% lower than traditional PBX systems. This “lower cost of entry” combined with the significantly lower monthly usage expense is behind the current boom in internet telephony for small and medium sized businesses.

Truly, a greater number of businesses across America will be giving serious attention to what business VoIP PBX systems have to offer for them. Combining very low start up costs with demonstrably lower administrative expenditures will certainly continue to fuel the rapid rise in interest for select VOIP PBX providers. In these days of rapidly rising costs, internet telephony is a welcome and necessary cost saving alternative for small and medium sized businesses everywhere and certainly will help users remain competitive in the global marketplace.

About the author:
Michael Brito is a Sr. Manager of Community Marketing at Yahoo! Inc. He has over 10 years of direct marketing experience in driving customer acquisition, retention and engagement through social media and other online media channels to include search engine optimization, paid search, display advertising, word of mouth and generating buzz. He also writes about social media marketing in his marketing blog in his free time.

VoIP Security Threats

VoIP Security Threats Explained by Michael Talbert

In a recent report issued by CompTIA, the Computer Technology Industry Association, 50% of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) had very little trust in the security offered by VoIP vendors, or for that matter, voice over IP security in general.

It is true, having your voice and data running on the same infrastructure leaves your telecommunications particularly vulnerable to all the security threats inherent in an IP network. Viruses, Trojan Horses, and worms can all wreak havoc on a network, and having your voice network go down for even the shortest time is intolerable for most business.

That said, security has come a long way, and most attacks can be stopped at the gateway by a good network administrator. While attacks on VoIP networks in particular are by no means widespread, the possibilities are there, if not imminent, and pose a very real threat to the very time sensitive requirements of voice over IP.

The following is a compilation of just some of the security threats facing a voice over IP network, as well as some security measures that could be taken to prevent such attacks.

SPIT: The new Spam for VoIP

Most anybody that receives email is familiar with the term Spam. Who among us has not received dozens of unsolicited emails, clogging up our mailboxes and causing us to waste our valuable time? Laws have been made to reduce the clutter in our mailboxes, and major offenders have been fined heavily and in some cases put in jail.

Spam is basically the broadcasting of advertisements, announcements, or other unwanted messages, over a network or networks, ending up in the mail boxes of anyone that has an email address on that network. At worst, spam is frustrating for the recipient, and can also cause network problems utilizing a good majority of bandwidth that is meant for other things. As email applications are connectionless and not sensitive to time delay, eventually the recipient will receive their emails intact, albeit a few minutes later than it would normally take.

Spam over Internet telephony, otherwise known as SPIT, can have far greater consequences than email spam. Spitters that target VoIP gateways can use up the available bandwidth, severely disrupting Quality of Service and causing a major degradation in voice quality.

The open nature of VoIP phone calls makes it easy for spitters to broadcast audio commercials just as email advertisements are broadcast. On closed networks like Vonage or Skype, or even your companies LAN, it is a little more difficult as the spitter would have to hack into the network in order to implement the broadcast. It can, however, be done.

The ability to broadcast audio messages over a VoIP network is not, in itself, necessarily a bad thing. Companies should be able to get out important messages quickly, and on a broader scope, emergency services could easily communicate mandatory evacuations, or warn of impending disasters in the event of catastrophe.

While Spit is certainly a technical possibility, to date, we have not seen a lot of it. In 2004, the peer to peer VoIP network Skype got hacked into, and users were inundated with unsolicited audio messages. Shortly thereafter, Skype had found and closed the loophole in the network. One other legal recourse is to get on the national Do Not Call list, to prevent solicitors from bombarding your voice mail box

Eavesdropping

Probably one of the scariest vulnerabilities of VoIP is the ability of an outsider to eavesdrop on a private conversation. This concept is nothing new to IP data networks, and generally requires a packet analyzer to intercept IP packets, and in the case of VoIP, saving the data as an audio file. Hackers then have the ability to learn user ids and passwords, or worse, to gain knowledge of confidential business information.

While it is true that eavesdropping occurs on traditional telephone lines as well as cellular networks, for someone to tap into your home phone line pretty much requires a physical presence outside your house. In the case of an IP network, a hacker requires only a laptop, some readily available software, and the knowledge of how to hack into your network.

Security analysts have long used encryption techniques to protect the confidentiality of data traveling through an IP network, and the same concept holds true for voice packets. The challenge with voice is to encrypt strongly and quickly, to protect confidentiality and as not to slow down the packet flow.

Nevertheless, if someone really wants to listen in on your calls, no type of telecommunication is 100% secure.

Phishing the Waters of Voice over IP

Another variation of an email attack, Phishing is designed to trick a user into revealing sensitive data such as user names, passwords, bank accounts, credit cards, and even social security numbers. In the case of VoIP, the attack could come as a voice mail message urging you to call a designated number and provide your user information. Even if the call is automated, touch tones can be easily deciphered. Depending on what information they get, hackers can use it to access bank accounts, or to steal identities.

While you can program a PBX to restrict call backs to known phishers, as more users become familiar with the pitfalls of the Internet, it becomes common knowledge to never give out sensitive information to automated media, be it via data or voice.

SIP Registration Hijacking

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is becoming widely accepted as the method for setting up VoIP phone calls. The process involves a Registrar (in some cases the company PBX itself), which maintains a database of all users subscribed to the network, and basically maps their telephone number to an IP address.

Registration hijacking occurs when the packet header of either party is intercepted by a hacker, who substitutes his IP address for that of the legitimate one. Attacks can take the form of fraudulent toll free calls, denial of service attacks that can render the users device useless, or a simple diversion of communication.

Spoofing

Another hack that is well known in data networks is spoofing Also known as a man in the middle attack, spoofing requires hacking into a network and intercepting packets being sent between two parties. Once the IP address or phone number of the trusted host is discovered, hackers can use this attack to misdirect communications, modify data, or in the case of Caller ID Spoofing, transfer cash from a stolen credit card number.

SIP registration hijacking is a form of spoofing. Both of these spoofs, as well as other hacks such as eavesdropping, can be prevented by employing encryption techniques at the call set up phase. Today, the up and coming mechanism to achieve this is to send SIP messages over an encrypted Transport Layer Security channel. Putting these two protocols together forms the acronym SIPS.

There is no doubt that IP networks can be, and are, hacked into. Since a converged network consists of data and voice, VoIP is as vulnerable as any application to these disruptions, but with a downtime tolerance of no more than 5 minutes a year, such interruptions are considered intolerable for voice applications.

As of today, most of these security threats are not wide spread, and are presented here as a what could happen in the future scenario. Industry experts agree that as voice over Internet telephony becomes more wide spread, malicious hacking attempts are bound to follow.

These and other security threats can be prevented by a vigilant network staff, using all the known security precautions typical of an IP network. No VoIP solution is secure out of the box, and must be locked down by using common sense approaches, including but not limited to changing default passwords, closing down unused ports and services, utilizing firewalls and VPNs for network communications, and diligent intrusion detection.

Author Michael Talbert is a certified systems engineer and web designer with over 7 years experience in the industry. For more information on VoIP Telecommunications, visit the website VoIP-Facts.net, or the VoIP Facts Blog for up to date industry news and commentary.

Article Source: Rhino Articles