The problems with current phone service are that it is costly and makes use of fixed capabilities. As a consultant who has installed telecommunications services all over North America, I have worked with many of the largest telecommunications companies. One of the things that became apparent to the telephone providers is that consumers and business wanted cheaper and more mobile services. They have all listened and listened well.

IOVC technologies can cut your business costs sharply. The internet has promised phone service for a long time. But internet phone service is finally becoming a viable business option. If you are looking for success through the use of the internet and the current voice technologies, then as a business owner you owe it to yourself to make yourself profitable with the many readily available, emerging IOVC technology tools. Years ago, these tools were only available to large business and in some case were shrunk or made to fit for medium business, but seldom for small business and definitely not for a single person business.

In this continuing series on IOVC, examining the "V" of IOVC (internet, office, VOIP and CRM) technologies, Voice to VOIP needs to be understood in a little more depth. This will help the business owner to start understanding the real impact and benefits upon your business and personal life.

Voice Over IP is the new version of the old PTSN, Packet Switch Telephone Network. It provides telephone voice service over internet packets instead of old circuit switched circuits. Voice over IP networks provides the user the opportunity to enjoy the use of telephone services through their Internet connection. To you that means the LAN, WAN or local office network that your computer uses.

VOIP telephony services have improved dramatically from the earlier days. It use to be a nice new technology that people heard about but would not trust their business with it. Well technology has moved at the speed of light and few years later VOIP is here to stay. All the major regional bell operating companies (RBOCs) are now on board and offering services. In the United States, the 4 remaining ones of Verizon, Quest, SBC and Bell South with AT&T and up north where Telus and Bell Canada rule as the major telecommunications providers, VOIP is in everyone's product offering. And of course we have the cable over internet phone service providers like Cable vision, Shaw Communications and Rogers.

The benefits of voice over internet protocol are many and you can take advantage of these benefits as they appear at many places in the end-to-end business process of your organization.

From an expense reduction perspective, VOIP has proven it is substantially better and substantially cheaper! It is most cases it is a flat rate service. Unlimited service for a major coverage area such as all of the US and Canada is very common. It even has a benefit over wireless when you travel because all incoming calls to a VOIP line are free. Around your home or office, you can activate all extensions off of one base VOIP phone. In a small business you can make a small free PBX system with multiple extensions.

Major productivity enhancements for your office business process are that you can use internet access to track your phone calls, play your phone calls and store them as history for retrieval at another time. Talk about cutting down on transcription time. Then there are a host of follow me/find me services, remote user services and integration with existing desktop applications like Outlook. These services are more exotic then your normal telephone service, but are simple to use and you immediately gain the benefits from using them. They use your existing communications infrastructure.

Additional benefits are call number portability, low cost local, long distance and internet transport services and now you don't have to change phone numbers. VOIP also provides convenient, inexpensive conferencing and some services provide visual voicemail and integrate with existing telephone services.

For business travelers, a really neat feature is you can take your number with you all around the world because software VOIP benefits those who do a great deal of travel. It is great for wireless set-ups. When you set up an account with a provider of software VOIP, you can then download the service directly to your computer. All you need is a high-speed internet connection; sound card, microphone and speakers, and you are ready to make telephone calls through your computer. The convenience of the software VOIP is that wherever you travel, when you take your laptop with you, you also have use of your local phone.

The significance of VOIP is that it is readily available anywhere you are. VOIP fits the end to end IOVC business process improvement paradigm perfectly since it has Internet web based capabilities, Office Process capabilities and of course V for Voice Over Internet Protocol services. The benefits as defined of this component of the end-to-end IOVC business process improvement technology are many and require more explanation then we can provide here. Your business processes already have these technologies in your business, you owe to yourself to learn how to use and profit from these capabilities.

Do you make the best use of IOVC technology? There are many IOVC solutions in addition to VOIP and you owe it to your bottom line to investigate the possible benefits for your business.