Hidden benefits of VoIP highlighted

Businesses may be missing some less obvious benefits of implementing VoIP services, it has been suggested.

While the potential for cost-savings have rightly caught the eye, VoIP also has other things to offer such as greater mobility for workers or flexibility in a company's telephony needs, according to the Financial Times.

The newspaper highlighted some examples where VoIP communications have had a much larger effect than simply cutting costs, such as at Vancouver Film Studios.

"Within the film studios, because of the nature of the business, one day you need ten phones for a production and then you need 200. Then you're back to ten," said Roger Terhune chief technology officer of Signal Systems, a subsidiary of the film studios.

"The problem with PSTN [public phone network] resources and phone lines is that those lines aren't dynamic. It takes six to nine weeks to get them installed. When a production unit only needs it for a week you have all of that capacity sitting by the wayside."

However, Mr Terhune said switching to a VoIP service allows the studio to request a short term boost in available phone lines - which can be set up in around ten minutes.