goodbye productivity.....

[vernacular_life]

Our office is switching to VOIP for our phone service.  Yeah, its cheaper, but look at the disadvantages:

One severe limitation of VoIP is that it will only work if the PC is switched on and the VOIP software is running. Again, the other party with whom you are talking must have the same infrastructure and software installed on his machine.

Another disadvantage of VOIP is the poor quality of sound generated by VoIP. The sound produced is uneven, has a lot of delays and echoes. To obtain lower bandwidth, the voice compression algorithms and echo cancellation requires extra processing which eventually makes the digital phones more expensive.

If your internet connection goes off, you can’t have you VOIP working.

It is difficult to manage emergency calls. For example if you use 911 service, the agencies will find it difficult to trace you location which may make it difficult for you to get help in times of need.

So you're telling me that you have to logon to your computer to have crappy quality calls that can drop out at any second?  Sign me up!!!

Oho, and our network goes down - maybe just for 20 seconds - every afternoon.

Comments

[onelargecat.livejournal.com]

UGH! How annoying. Jeff's advisor (a total workaholic) is always calling him from abrod when she's traveling to conferences and such--she calls him over her computer (and I don't know if it's using VOIP technology or something else--is there something else?) and he says there is a 10 or 15 second delay sometimes between what he says and when she responds. He hates having to talk to her through the computer b/c the service is so bad. Maybe it's something different, though, b/c I can't imagine a company switching to this if it's really that bad.

Does that mean people can only call you through a VOIP thing? Or can a regular phone call you still?

[vernacular-life.livejournal.com]

supposedly, a regular phone can call us (but its cheaper, aka free, if they call over the computer) and we'll have a new desk phone to use as normal. It's suppose to be 'invisible' to us, but I'm not holding my breath on that one...

[tinksdust.livejournal.com]

Why is it when companies (especially those with government ties) try and make things better they usually end up being worse?

[vernacular-life.livejournal.com]

you got me. we do have a contractor who works w/ us who has it & the only downside that they have is that they can't make calls when the server is down...