Porting to VoIPstudio from another VoIP Provider

Less than a decade ago, VoIP was not yet a part of the mainstream technology landscape. Although people were using services like Skype most of us had no idea that it was built on VoIP or even what VoIP was. Nowadays it is hard to find an organization that does not use VoIP. At the very least, most companies are interested in deploying VoIP and are exploring their options.

The VoIP industry has matured considerably from its early infancy when the reliability and quality of voice calls were highly questionable. Today the vast majority of users will be unable to distinguish between a call placed through VoIP and one which arrives on the existing PSTN. On the one hand, we have companies that are still exploring how to deploy VoIP while others are already trying to figure out how to build unified communication systems on top of VoIP.

Switching VoIP Providers

Some businesses have been using VoIP for a long time and it should come as no surprise that many organizations have replaced their original service provider at least once or twice. Why would you want to change your vendor? There are many reasons – both positive and negative – to switch to a competitor.

For instance, the increasing competition between providers offers an opportunity for organizations find better prices. For large companies even a small change in the monthly bill can add up to thousands of dollars over a few years. Another reason would be that you have simply outgrown the capability of your current vendor to provide for your business needs. Your business requirements may even have changed with time and other circumstances.

Perhaps one of the most common reasons for switching is bad customer service and tech support. There are hundreds of VoIP providers who compete on the basis of price alone which means that they have to necessarily cut corners elsewhere. Inevitably this happens with customer service. Organizations do not realize the value of good tech support until problems arise and they take hours or even days to resolve.

Porting to VoIPstudio from Another Provider

So you have decided to switch to VoIPstudio because your current provider is unable to fulfill your requirements in some manner. Changing providers for any enterprise system or service can be a task fraught with complications and obstacles. In many cases, the end-users or employees will only see a fraction of the problems since most of them are resolved at the backend. So you may be apprehensive of switching VoIP vendors since voice communications are an integral part of any business.

But you can rest assured that porting to VoIPstudio will be a straightforward process. VoIPstudio uses the standardized SIP protocol as a foundation for the hosted service. SIP is the most popular and commonly used protocol for implementing VoIP. It is widely supported by most vendors, service providers and hardware manufacturers. It is also open source which means that there are no licenses to pay or subscriptions to purchase. As long as your current vendor supports SIP (and the vast majority do), you should have no problems with compatibility.

The actual porting process should take no more than a few days. Most organizations find that apart from changing certain configuration settings or customizing individual preferences, there is not much that you have to do to make your phones work with VoIPstudio.

If you have not already optimized your network equipment for VoIP (QoS), the now is a perfect time to do this. Since VoIP data packets time sensitive, optimizing your network properly ensures that they get priority on the network.

Don’t Forget to Port Your Numbers

The inability to take your number with you when you switch providers was one of the major reasons for organizations to stay with their current vendor, even if they are dissatisfied. But that should not stop you any longer. FDA regulations state that all providers must offer number porting to their users and in fact, vendors cannot stop you from porting out numbers even if you have outstanding bills or payments.

Porting your numbers is a straightforward process and also pretty quick. Unless you have complex arrangements, multiple locations or hundreds of numbers, bringing your numbers to VoIPstudio it shouldn’t take more than a few days. The only catch is that some providers may not have numbers in certain area codes so you should always check beforehand. VoIP studio puts no barriers on porting in or putting out numbers at any point, so you can rest assured that you’re not locked in.

As you can see, porting your phones to VoIPstudio from other vendors is almost as simple as signing up for the service for the first time. In some cases it can actually be quicker this time around because you are not starting from scratch. You already know what your requirements are and simply need to make the necessary configuration changes.