If you’re looking at your monthly business expenses, your traditional landline phone bill is probably sticking out. There’s a growing cost of keeping old copper telephone lines. In fact, if your business is UK based, traditional lines are being completely phased out early, ahead of the permanent landline switch-off on 31 January 2027.
Fortunately there is a modern alternative that not only saves your business from losing its connection, but can also reduce your monthly telephone costs by 40% to 75%. This is called VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) which is a technical way of making phone calls over the internet.
Say Goodbye To Line Rental Fees
In a traditional phone setup, you pay a monthly fee just to rent the physical copper line that connects your office to the telephone network. If your business needs ten lines so that several people can talk at once you pay for ten separate line rentals.
With VoIP you do not have to rent physical lines. You do not need a separate telephone wire, as your calls are delivered as digital data over your existing office broadband.
Drastically Lower Call Rates
Long distance and international calls are expensive with traditional telecom providers. They also have per minute charges for local and mobile calls which can add up quickly if you have an active sales or customer support team. VoIP technology is not confined to geographical boundaries as it uses the internet.
Inclusive Minutes
The majority of business VoIP packages include large amounts of inclusive minutes each month or even unlimited domestic calls to both landlines and mobiles.
Cheap International Calling
VoIP international rates are often up to 90% cheaper than traditional phone networks when calling clients or suppliers abroad as the data bypasses the legacy international telephone infrastructure.
No More Costly, Bulky Hardware
A typical office phone system requires buying an expensive central box (known as a PBX system) that has to be mounted on an office wall, plus special desk phones and complicated wiring. That means thousands of pounds of capital expenditure up front, plus ongoing maintenance contracts to repair the system when it breaks down.
VoIp is cloud based. This means that your control box is safely stored on the internet and maintained by your provider, at no charge to you. To use VoIP, you don’t even need to buy physical phones
Softphones
Your team can download a secure app to their existing laptop, desktop computer or smartphone. They can make and receive professional business calls on your office number without any new hardware.
Optional IP Phones
If your staff require a physical desk phone, you can purchase modern internet-compatible phones (IP phones) quite cheaply or even lease them from your provider for a small monthly fee.
Built-In Features That Used To Cost Extra
Every helpful feature is an add-on that drives up your bill. If you want a digital receptionist to route calls, call forwarding, voicemail-to-email or call recording, you will normally have to pay extra monthly fees or buy additional hardware modules. VoIP has these sophisticated tools built directly into the software. Even basic entry level plans often include:
- Auto-Attendants (Virtual Receptionists): Automatically routes customers to the correct department.
- Voicemail-to-Email: Delivers an audio recording or text transcript of missed calls right to your inbox.
- Smart Call Routing: When working from home or on the road, calls made to the office are automatically forwarded to an employee’s mobile phone, so they don’t miss out on business opportunities.
Cost Free And Easy Scaling
You can’t build a business on traditional landlines and it’s slow and expensive. You have to wait for a telecom engineer to come to your office and install new wiring, set up new lines and charge you an activation fee if you hire three employees. If business drops off you are stuck paying for those lines until the contract is up.
VoIP scales instantly via an online dashboard. If you hire a new staff member, you can log in, push a few buttons and add a new user profile in minutes. They can dial directly from their laptop. And if someone leaves the company, you can just as quickly remove their licence so you only ever pay for what you actually use.
Traditional Landlines vs. Cloud VoIP
With old-school setups, your ongoing monthly costs were directly proportional to the number of physical lines that were wired into your office. Modern systems are flat rate subscriber licenses that scale easily.
Upfront costs vary widely as well; legacy networks require a large upfront cost for physical control boxes and dedicated on-site wiring, while internet-based solutions allow your team to make calls immediately, using their existing laptop or smartphone.
And last but not least, the type of operational expenses you would normally incur on a day-to-day basis, such as calling mobile phones or international clients, come with premium per minute rates on a landline. But these are typically bundled into a standard internet phone plan, with helpful routing and voicemail features, at no extra cost.
Easy Ways To Change And Save
If you’re looking to reduce your telephone bill, switching to VoIP is very simple:
- Look at your current lines: Check your current contract end dates and find out exactly how many phone numbers you have.
- Troubleshoot your internet connection: Make sure your office broadband is reliable as VoIP requires a stable internet connection to keep the audio quality clear.
- Select a provider: Find a reputable provider that bundles the specific calling minutes (mobile or international destinations) your team actually uses.
- Port your numbers: Your new VoIP provider will port your existing business phone numbers to the digital system free of charge, so your customers won’t know the difference.
