VOIP and law firms
More people are becoming familiar with the term “VOIP.” You should, too. The other day, I had a conversation for 1-1/2 hours with a person in Switzerland. The call didn’t cost either of us anything. The voice quality was excellent.
Here’s the reality -
When you make a call over a traditional phone, your conversation is turned digital by the phone company. The call gets transmitted across the phone company networks and eventually converted back to analog sounds you hear in your ear. Well, it turns out your computer is already connected to a worldwide digital network. So, bypass the phone company and turn your voice digital with the same PC and a piece of VOIP software. Best of all, you can call all of your friends on their office, home and cell phones for pennies a minutes - internationally. How much does your firm spend in calls?
Here’s some background reading - very light
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP
Is there a lot of VOIP software available?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software
Are there any companies that offer VOIP as phone service, just like ol’ Ma Bell?
Skype -
What about calls away from my computer?
Until recently, you had to be by your PC to make a VOIP call. Now, Motorola has a cell phone that dynamically switches between cell calling and voip calling DURING A CALL, depending on availability of VOIP.
What about security?
Phil Zimmerman of PGP fame has a new product that uses the same industrial encryption for your voip calls. That’s right, no one can listen to your voip call.
Skype for Business
Skype also offers all the traditional voice products you rely upon, such as voice mail, conference calling, call forwarding and more. Personally, I like that voice mail arrives in my email inbox.
http://www.skype.com/products/skypegroups/
More to come…