VoIP News: June 2011

The Australian government has urged businesses and individuals to switch to VoIP to keep costs down in the face of price rises from telephony giant Telstra. The communications firm recently announced its intention to increase its prepaid mobile international call prices from August 2nd, ZDNet reports. A spokesperson for communications minister Stephen Conroy told worried customers that there are several alternatives to using Telstra for this type of call, one of which is VoIP.

Small business should move their communication platform into the cloud, it has been suggested, a step which could mean adopting VoIP services. In a recent interview with TMCnet, president of Distributed Networking Associates and editor-in-chief of Webtorials Steve Taylor, along with vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates Jim Metzler, suggested moving to the cloud is the "next big thing".

Business owners have been informed of the benefits associated with VoIP solutions. In its recent newsletter, advisory website Network World set out some of the benefits associated with the technology. The portal claimed that companies using VoIP phones and similar communications systems can expect a "controlled and predictable cost" when operating such services.

Firms that use IP telephony to enhance their communications network need to integrate social media seamlessly into their operations, it has been claimed. Tim Gibbon, director at communications consultancy Elemental, said too many firms treat their interaction with sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a separate marketing tool, rather than incorporating it into everything they do. This is a "knee-jerk" reaction, Mr Gibbon continued, which results in the techniques used not being inclusive in relation to customers and clients.

British businesses, many of which employ VoIP services as part of their telephony solutions, are increasingly using the issue of climate change as a catalyst for innovation, it has been suggested. According to Iain Watt, principal sustainability advisor at Forum for the Future, many firms are thinking strategically about the implications of climate change and how it could affect their operations. On top of that, Mr Watt continued, several of those enterprises are devising different ways to interact with the issue and, in some cases, revolutionising the way they work by developing entirely new processes and procedures.