So, Voice over IP and UCaaS has been around for years. However, not all businesses accept the idea, especially organizations still utilizing an old TDM PBX (a phone system that connects all phones through traditional copper wires to the central office). Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has other plans. *Note -FCC is pushing for all copper, twisted pair, Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), and Primary Rate Interface (PRI) options to be obsolete.

Now is an excellent time to look into VoIP or UCaaS solutions. Here is a link to what the FCC is doing. MPLS won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, but don’t let the slow your roll from changing your outdated PBX with one of today’s Voice over IP or UCaaS solutions; there are plenty of reasons you should switch before FCC has its way.

What is Voice over IP

In a recent article, “VoIP explained; how Voice Over Internet Protocol works and what are the benefits.” I explain VoIce over IiP; if it helps, please stop and read the article before continuing. I also provided a nice diagram for reference. You can also reach out to me if you have any questions. Anyway, here is a straightforward definition of VoIP

Voice over IP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. When an IP call connects to a regular Plain old Telephone number, the signal is converted to an analog signal before it reaches the recipient. Conversely speaking, your voice converts into a digital signal that travels over the Internet. But please read my article to understand what it is entirely. Let’s move on to the Benefits of VoIP and UCaaS.

The benefits of Voice over IP/UCaaS

UCaaS communication service should support six communications functions. Unified communications as a service sit at the provider’s cloud-based infrastructure, usually on IaaS Service offered by Amazon. Microsoft uses Azure, and Google uses Google cloud. 

• Enterprise telephony
• Meetings (audio/video/web conferencing)
• Unified messaging
• Instant messaging and presence (personal and team)
• Mobility

The provider manages the UCaaS service but houses the infrastructure, usually on AWS or AZURE, and jointly operates, maintains, and delivers the service to you or the customer. The software developer provides applications from a common platform and licenses them for a recurring monthly subscription charge. Typical characteristics of this kind of system are multifunctionality (including user partitions in a shared UC infrastructure, like data centers, racks, computing resources, network equipment, and blades) and a web portal that supports self-service deployment, management, and usage reporting.

UCaaS and VoIP are great options to modernize business communications, but which is better? What are the advantages and disadvantages of UCaaS vs. VoIP for business? Let us understand the differences between VoIP and UCaaS to determine the most suitable for your organization.

For those organizations that use video conferencing – for internal meetings and engaging clients – UCaaS is likely a better choice. Unified communications may be more practical if you are a team that requires dynamic collaboration tools. And it’s a good choice if you have a customer service call center that handles the cases – you can integrate your UCaaS and customer service solutions.

The Future of Voice over IP/UCaaS

Although it would certainly be nice to see things return to normal someday, the extended nature of the so-called COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organizations to adapt on the fly to find new ways to do business without losing momentum.

In the past decade, UCaaS, or Unified Communications as a Service, has emerged as a technology that can help solve these challenges. As a result of the pandemic, many companies are looking to move to a cloud-based delivery model that accommodates remote work and is flexible and scalable to meet future demands.