What is Happening?
Firstly, DONT PAINIC! You may well have heard of plans to close the PSTN. To be specific, we are talking about the withdrawal of Openreach based WLR and ISDN services, as the PSTN marches on towards its grave and an ‘All IP’ future is realised. We mentioned this 2 years ago but now is the time to prepare.1
Openreach and its partners (which is anyone that sells you an Openreach phone line) will no longer be able to do so from 2025.2 and some telephone exchanges have already had the changes implemented. You will instead be offered an IP only line that is either pure fibre or a but with no underlying voice service like SOGEA3. You will then have the option to connect to an over-the-top IP based phone service (VoIP).
The fallout of a global pandemic and Brexit has taken the focus away from this technology shift and according to a recent survey only ‘33% of SMEs are aware’ of the incoming changes.4
"SMEs may not have access to the technical expertise and support to not only navigate the transition but to make the most of the opportunities it brings."
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail:
VoiceHost has been offering SMEs VoIP services for a few months shy of 15 years and the greatest challenge will always be around local network and hardware setup.
If you look at the example of any independent shop, selling anything your imagination can create and like most in the real world it has with a single internet connection with an average speed.
Most businesses will have point-of-sale terminals, offer Wi-Fi, run employee computer terminals connected to the internet; and this is before you think about CCTV and other streaming services that might be running. Contention will at some point cause issues, whether its iPhone or Windows updates or remote backups to name just the obvious ones.
VLAN and QoS can be important tools to provisioning a quality centric service. Our specialist teams have expertise in helping you make decisions and advice on things like routers and switches which may interfere with VoIP services like SIP ALG.
We can also provide the pros and cons on tethering other IP devices to your IP phones, advise on best practices, number portability and available to support you 24 hrs a day with our UK based teams.
Perhaps you prefer mobile and/or email anyway, VoiceHost can show you the benefits of mixing all of these technologies like utilising Softphone applications or Call Queuing and Call Groups could improve your customer service and sales.
Moving to VoiceHost will also bring you an array of potential benefits on offer like our real-time management portal and all the features that are perceived to be for larger companies at your fingertips with flexibility and ease of use. You could go as far as to say, you are in experienced hands with VoiceHost, so please contact VoiceHost and we will happily welcome you into the fold.
On a nostalgic note, if you are of a certain age that can remember the sound of the internet, this will be resigned to the history books.5
- https://www.voicehost.co.uk/help/all-IP-wlr-pstn-closure
- https://www.openreach.com/news/were-taking-the-next-steps-to-a-new-digital-world/
- https://www.voicehost.co.uk/blog/sogea-naked-broadband
- https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/02/businesses-unprepared-for-the-end-of-traditional-phone-lines.html
- https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a29611456/internet-dialup-modem-sounds/
