Beginner’s Guide to Understanding IP Phones

As you switch your business phone system to a VoIP solution, some of your office staff may need a bit of knowledge on what it means to start using IP phones and why it’s important for your business. This article will provide a beginner’s level overview of IP phones, how they’re different from landline phones, and why they’re better.

In this article, we will answer the following questions:

1. What is an IP phone?
2. How are IP phones different from landline phones?
3. Why are IP phones better?
4. Where can I use my IP phone?
5. What can I expect with IP phones?

What is an IP phone?

Voice over internet protocol, or VoIP, is a technology that allows you to place phone calls over the internet. Hence VoIP phones, or more commonly called IP phones. You have likely seen IP phones in many offices and not even realized they were VoIP.

IP phones include desk phones, cordless phones, and conference phones that resemble your everyday office phone, but uses a different technology for powering calls. Let’s learn more about how an IP phone differs from its predecessor the analog phone or better known as the landline phone.

How are IP Phones Different from Landline Phones?

After you move over to a VoIP phone system, your old landline phones will no longer work and will need to have been replaced with IP phones (unless you decide to use ATA Adaptors, which is usually not recommended). Looks-wise, IP phones and analog phones are indistinguishable to the average person and provide the same functionality.

So how is it different from landline phones? The difference lies in the transmission. The analog phone service carries signals over a copper wire while the VoIP service delivers these signals over an IP data network.

The advantage of IP phones is that these digital signals can be transmitted anywhere across the internet by using nothing but your regular internet connection, thereby bypassing the trunks and cables, and therefore the charges laid down by telephone companies. Besides this major expense, let’s see what other advantages IP phones offer.

Why are IP Phones Better? 

The demand for IP phones is ever-increasing, across large and small organizations. The advantages are clear and quantifiable. A business owner’s vote for IP phones is justified by the following reasons:

1. Same look and feel: The difference lies in the working, not the looks. IP phones look almost identical to their analog counterparts. While IP phones should naturally appear newer, they use the same amount of place on your desk, and come with a handset receiver, keypad, and buttons like transfer, hold, and conference. More importantly, you don’t need to educate your employees on using it. The keypad, receiver, display screen, and buttons are all placed just like in landline phones.
2. Cost-savings: If a business is looking to update their telephone system and save costs over the long term, a network of IP phones is the best bet. IP phones use the internet to make and receive calls, which means you don’t have to invest in copper wires to carry analog signals all around the office. You can use the existing internet connection in your office to connect your IP phones. What’s more, Users can make free calls to other IP phones in the organization.
3. Unlimited simultaneous calls: On a traditional landline phone, if you wished to make a call while already on another call on the same phone, you would need a different number to make the second call, also known as a ‘rollover line’. With IP Phones, the need for rollover lines (and its extra cost per line) is eliminated. With IP phones, you’re only limited to the number of physical phones and people available to answer the calls and are able to avoid busy signals completely.

Where can I use my IP phone?

Another defining quality of IP phones is that you can use them in any location where you have internet connection. The IP phone itself does not rely on the physical location of the office. You can unplug an IP phone, take it to another location, and plug it in again where your line (phone number/extension) and its settings (routing rules, hold music, etc.) will be unchanged.

What can I expect with IP phones?

The end user, migrating the company phone system to a new VoIP service doesn’t mean you have to re-learn how to use a phone. An IP phone is still your standard office phone, with all the features you’re used to.

The key is that an IP phone system gives your company the economic and long term benefits it needs to grow. Ultimately, you’ll benefit from an IP phone because of it’s modern design, ease-of-use, lower maintenance, and ever-improving functionality.

This means you don’t need to wait for a technician to come out and program a new extension, install updates, or perform a maintenance check on your hardware. So, have no fear! When your new IP phone arrives at your desk, it is hopefully preconfigured and ready for calling, or you can always find step-by-step guides for various IP phones on our support page.