VoIP vs Virtual phone number system: what’s the best solution?

Let’s explore two popular telephony solutions for business: VoIP services and virtual phone systems. To which users are they recommended and what is the best solution?

Voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) services are totally independent of the fixed telephone line, and usually present an advanced feature set at higher rates. it is an optimal choice for medium/large teams, where more powerful features are needed, especially in the case of video calling, file sharing and advanced auto-attendants.

Virtual phone systems, on the other hand, require the presence of an existing phone line, from which to forward calls to their customers. They are intended primarily for personal use (freelance workers) or small teams of workers, and in general where you want to have a business line at lower costs than VoIP systems. They are a great choice for personal use precisely because they allow users to mask their location and control who can see and use their phone number, while still allowing easy access across devices.

If you choose a VoIP solution

If you think it’s better to adopt a VoIP solution for your business, here are the main aspects you should focus on to make the best choice.

Mobility

The main plus of VoIP is undoubtedly the ability to use it on the move, as long as there is an internet connection available.

Scalability

It is very important to understand if the VoIP provider allows not only upward scalability, but also downward scalability if the business is downsizing and needs a plan reduction. Therefore, it’s helpful to see if adding, deleting or reassigning phone numbers and extensions is easy, and if a single phone system can be deployed to other locations.

Usability

The need to easily manage, configure and use a VoIP service is inexorably leading towards unified platforms, i.e. accessible from a single dashboard where voice, SMS, fax, voicemail and video meetings are merged into a single platform.

Security

The security measures taken by the VoIP provider to protect their system must be high-level and able to combine encryption (basically hiding information from unauthorized users) with best practices against cyber-attacks and fraud.

Reliability

One of the key aspects when it comes to enterprise phone systems hosted in the cloud is that of redundancy. If a service is hosted on multiple servers, located in multiple physical locations, when one server or data center goes down, others can take over without issue.