Commercial Vs. Residential VoIP
For most people, life in the workplace and life at home are commonly two completely different entities. Professional lives are called professional for a reason, same goes with personal lives. They are meant to be separate.
The way you interact with colleagues in the office is always much different than how you interact with friends and family outside the work environment. Life is just simpler when both worlds are split. You don’t dress the same way at work as you do at home. You don’t use your computer the same way at work as you do at home.
The world of business is treated with a different level of importance as opposed to the personal lives of the people working in it. Let’s take the age-old telephone as a prime example. The phone system inside your office needs to be drastically different than the phone system inside your home.
Since we are living in the year 2022, let’s specifically target the voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone systems.
Using a VoIP telephone is basically making a call over the internet because honestly, what doesn’t use the internet at this point in time? Whether in the office or at work, technology keeps shrinking the world. Much like any technology out there, any given consumer is concerned with what they are going to get for their money. Features are what the customer looks for first.
Residential VoIP systems are pretty straightforward in every sense of the word. This system will have just one phone number and two phone lines. In most cases that is the maximum. You will generally get one or two voice mailboxes to listen to your messages.
Typically you also will get one forwarding number, no extensions and a rather cheap “minutes per month” plan. In some cases the minutes per month are unmetered. Businesses are much more complex than the way your average home functions. It’s common knowledge that businesses use far more minutes of talk time than your average household.
Business VoIP providers offer a slew of other options that a typical residential customer surely wouldn’t need or even want. Business VoIP systems have extensions so every inbound call is sent to an extension of the main office number. Direct phone numbers can be purchased for additional cost in addition to extension numbers.
Business VoIP providers offer such features as call centers, auto-dialers, telepresence and conference bridges as well as various software packages to enhance your system and integrate with other technologies. Many providers also offer additional features beyond that, for a premium cost, for features like call groups and automatic callback.
The number of features the system has can go a long way in determining its overall capabilities. A typical VoIP phone line can manage several simultaneous calls at once. This number of calls is determined by the bandwidth available at any given time.
A business VoIP system can usually be able to handle 100 calls at the same time with ease. Residential VoIP systems can manage three calls, two of which are concurrent with the third being put on hold. The residential VoIP system is obviously cheaper to correspond with consumers’ wants and needs.
Plus, the residential system needs to be affordable for the consumer, thus justifying the lack of features. Although designed for strictly household purposes, the residential VoIP system is sometimes offered to businesses as well. Since residential VoIP commonly has a flat rate pricing strategy and business VoIP pricing models can get quite intimidating and confusing, small businesses might opt for the cheaper route if at all possible.
If a small business can function using the restrictions that come with a residential VoIP, they are able to purchase and use it for the same rather inexpensive rates.
As you can clearly see this is an “apples-to-oranges” comparison opposed to an “apples-to-apples.” VoIP, whether commercial or residential, are aiming to replace standard telephone and PBX phone systems whether that be in the home or the office.
Residential users are attracted by the lower prices and businesses love getting the most out of services like video conferencing that present much more than just the typical voice offering.
The telephone used to be one of the most straightforward and timeless inventions on the market, but as you can clearly see the telephone you would use in the workplace is bound to be extremely different and incredibly more complex from the one you use in the comfort of your own home in this day in age.