For several decades executives have recognized the significant cost and productivity advantages associated with remote workers. In the 80s and 90s, the expense of providing full support and integration of telecommuters into the corporate environment offset much of the projected cost advantages.

Today, with the high penetration of broadband in the home coupled with advances in internet-based telecommunications systems such as Hosted PBX solutions, migrating employees from office workers to remote workers is not only cost-effective, it has also become a high priority with a large percentage of companies. Getting employees out of the office workspace and into their home office workspace can yield immediate savings according to a study by the International Telework Association and Council. If you walk into almost any business office, you can generally find empty desks. An empty desk is a sure sign that you have a remote worker candidate. The study by the Telework Association found that a company could save about $10,000 per year for each recovered desk space.

Businesses with remote worker initiatives also benefit from increased productivity and improved employee satisfaction. The European Union’s ‘SusTel’ (Sustainable Teleworking) study, the largest European investigation to date into the impact of remote working, was conducted between 2002 and 2004 in five European countries. The study revealed that two-thirds of remote workers felt they achieved higher productivity, and that the quality of their work had improved. The study also showed that absenteeism was reduced by 70%. In Germany, 94% of BMW’s remote workers reported increased job satisfaction, and in the UK, around 90% of remote workers said they had an improved quality of life despite working longer hours.

Telecommunications is an important ingredient in the creation of a successful remote workforce. Most experts agree that the best system to support a remote worker environment is a VOIP Hosted PBX. This system’s architecture allows geographically separated employees to work together as if they were in the same physical workspace. A VOIP Hosted PBX breaks down the barriers of isolation and enhances the sense of belonging to one corporate culture, and also serves as an enabler to promote teamwork and cooperation.

In addition to hard dollar savings, increased productivity, and enhanced job satisfaction, the business case for deploying a remote workforce becomes almost insurmountable when you also consider that telecommunications expenses drop by about 40% when a traditional PBX is replaced with a VoIP Hosted PBX.

For businesses thinking about remote workers, the best departmental candidates for a VOIP Hosted PBX supported remote workforce are: Sales, marketing, and call center staff.

VOIP Hosted PBX Call Center is a powerful tool that can tie together employees across multiple locations under one unified call center. Incoming calls are held in queue and routed to the next available agent - regardless of their geographical location. Nightly reporting is available on both the agent and overall group level showing average hold time, average time spent per call, number of minutes an agent was logged in and logged out, plus other management features.

Advanced VOIP Hosted PBX features that surpass those available on a traditional PBX also support each remote worker. These features include such things as a custom auto attendant, unlimited local calling, long distance minutes, directory Assistance calls and reserved DID phones numbers. All remote workers receive their own phone number so callers don’t have to worry about busy signals or getting an outside line. Each remote worker on a Hosted PBX system also receives advanced calling features like simultaneous ring, Find-Me/ Follow-Me, Click-to-Call computer-assisted phone handling, and Outlook Integration.

Even though most companies initially begin investigating a remote workforce initiative in order to generate cost savings and rely upon ROI as the pivotal decision point, in reality it is the soft dollar benefits created by a Hosted PBX solution that ultimately generate the greatest expense reduction over the life-cycle of their investment. The VoIP Hosted PBX solution integrates widely diverse remote workers into a seamless, supervision-friendly work environment that is comparable to that of workers collocated in the same office space or building.

If you are seriously considering a remote workforce, or if you are merely looking for a better way to integrate existing remote workers into your business environment, then you should definitely investigate the advantages offered by a VoIP Hosted PBX solution.

Bill Casey is the VP of Marketing for Reignmaker Communications, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Reignmaker has over 11,000 business VoIP Hosted PBX installations and provides true end-to-end support

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VoIP services have several advantages for businesses. As phone calls are transmitted over the internet as data, the service dramatically lowers telecommunication costs. Whether you are in a car or at a business meeting thousands of miles away you can still make as well as receive calls without incurring great expenses. And, you will never miss a call or communication from a client. Where you go your business connections will go with you.

With advances in technology, it is no longer essential for you or your caller to be seated at a computer terminal. VoIP calls can be made using standard phones or IP phones. You can reap the benefits by using the extensive internet network in your offices to communicate better at little cost.

The phone system can be transported wherever you go and apart from calls, data can be transferred with great ease. You can do away with expenses related to maintenance of phone infrastructure and costly industry regulations.

Most VoIP systems are such that you can use your laptop along with a headphone or microphone to talk. So you will never miss an important business call. Furthermore, you can get voice mail and faxes forwarded automatically to your mail box. Similarly you can archive, file, or forward data to different employees or offices at the press of a button.

You can get virtual phone numbers of any available area code. So, even if you are in New York you can have phone numbers pertaining to California or Florida. The VoIP numbers can be set so as to simultaneously ring on the IP phone, landline, as well as cell phone. Then it will be automatically diverted to voice mail. This according to expert analysis results in greatly increased productivity. Internet telephony added up to nearly 4 additional hours each week per employee.

Since VoIP systems are constantly evolving its use will keep your business abreast with technology and the advantages that come with it. New wireless PDA/phone combinations will enable you to use VoIP services when you are near a Wi-Fi network and use the cell phone when you are away from a network. This increases mobility without added expenses. The IP network offers your business real-time high quality videoconferencing facilities that are affordable. The system also supports complex call center applications.

VoIP systems offer not just cost effectiveness. There is greater productivity, efficient incorporation of data, the ability to handle all business communication requirements such as Internet, e-mail, customer services, voice mail, as well as video conferencing. Software accounting programs, filing systems, and other PC based applications integrate seamlessly with VoIP systems. By combining data, video and audio needs, companies save incredible amounts on bandwidth usage.

Whether your business is small or large, VoIP offers a flexible and affordable option to sophisticated communication systems.

Paul Wilson is a freelance writer for http://www.1866Voip.com, the premier website to find help on Voip including topics on online voip, voip phone, voip service providers, voip solutions, business voip, internet telephony voip and more. He also freelances for the premier Voip Services site http://www.1888Voipservices.com

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In a traditional PSTN, the quality of service of the calls and continuous connection are very dependable; so, in order for people to switch to IP telephony, the same quality considerations must be maintained or excelled. With IP telephony consisting of distributed elements, the entire architecture has to be strategically managed to provide good service while at the same time reducing the overload and maintenance costs.

Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, solutions include components such as end-user devices, PBX, gateways and gatekeepers, IP network and several protocols that take care of the issues and operations of a transaction. When a call is initiated, there are distributed arrays of routers, which manage the call functions such as identification of the destination, maintenance of the connection between the IP and PSTN, billing management, and alerts about the incoming transaction.

In this competitive VoIP market, VoIP solutions must be able to meet needs such as high-speed interface, predictable performance, quality of service and security. These factors drive application development and infrastructure deployment. The routers should be able to handle thousands of calls through increased bandwidth, and they should also match the interface speeds in order to forward the IP packets. The quality of service is maintained in the router by addressing concerns such as exact sequencing of the packets so that the call is clear and meaningful. Security features are to be implemented to prevent hackers from accessing the infrastructure. This is managed by enumerating the routers, which function as gateways and controllers as private addresses, so they are not accessed through the public Internet.

A robust infrastructure deployment is complemented by application development that adheres to various protocols that are mostly governed by International Transmission Union (ITU) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Several protocols are available, and the necessity of the implementation depends upon the product groups. Signaling System Seven (SS7) is a protocol that manages the establishment and termination of calls. H.323 is a product-based communication protocol that signals the call to the IP network and the end user.

RTP protocols address the concerns of real-time receipt of calls so that the calls arrive in the same sequence. Media Gateway Control protocol coordinates the actions of gateways. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) handles the setup and tear down of multimedia sessions between speakers.

With a combination of infrastructure and protocol, VoIP solutions enable the customer to establish calls at a fraction of the rate of PSTN lines, while at the same time maintaining quality.

VOIP provides detailed information on VOIP, VOIP Providers, VOIP Phone System, VOIP Solutions and more. VOIP is affiliated with Wireless IP Phones.

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