This article is designed to give you a “no frills” understanding of the differences between a VoIP Phone Lines and a standard phone Lines (for the purpose of this document referred to as a “legacy system”

If we look at a legacy system, when we have one of these installed we contact our telecommunications company to install some phone lines. These phone lines have some limitations;

Legecy System

• Each phone line that is installed will cost you +-$35 per line

• Each phone line has a call concurrency of 1. This means we a call is being made on the line, either outward or inward the line is considered to be “busy” and cannot be used until the line becomes free again.

• Depending on where the line is geographically located EG Auckland, the number assigned to the delivered line will be limited by its location. Auckland lines all start with 09.

VoIP Comparison

• Each phone line (Trunk) that is configured for your site will cost $7

• There is NO call concurrency limitation!, it is possible to have 10 calls down a single trunk. This can drastically reduce the cost to your business. Many companies are required to take multiple phone lines so that a number of staff and customers can be on the phone at once.

• Numbers can be configured from any geographic location, not only New Zealand but anywhere in the world! – This means a company can have the appearance of having multiple locations and local numbers for customers to call and thus open up opportunities in new locations.

Other things to Consider:

We commonly refer to outages in the telephone industry as “spade fade”, this term has been coined due to someone putting a spade through a cable. If you think of the situation of a legacy phone system if your company suffers from “spade fade” you are at the mercy of the telecommunications company to resolve the issue.

With VoIP technology, because your server actually goes out and picks up the phones lines there is nothing to stop you picking up the server and relocating it to another site (where you have a working internet connection) and your phone lines will be reconnected.