Quality of Service for your VoIP Network

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has radically transformed the communication processes across offices. More companies are now upgrading from their legacy phone systems to this advanced technology.

Any progressive organization needs a strong communication network to facilitate the transmission of crucial data and applications. These also include delay-sensitive data such as real-time voice. When office networks are reviewed a term that is commonly heard is Quality of Service or QoS. Summarily, it is the set of techniques to manage network resources.

Networks can use QoS protocol to prioritize critical traffic types. If there is an unmanaged switch, all traffic on the network will be sent as it is received. There will be no differentiation or fragmentation assigned to the traffic order. It implies that if someone is transmitting a large video file on your network, they can use a big portion of the available bandwidth and this will result in less space for smaller but significant applications such as voice. So if another person is trying to make a voice call through the same network, they may face difficulty in connecting to their destination.

Ensuring the essential Quality of Service (QoS) by managing the delays, jitter (delay variations), bandwidth, and packet loss parameters on a network is the key to better end-to-end business solution for business communication.

Prioritizing Voice Traffic

If there is an ongoing problem in the voice quality on your unmanaged network, the first step is to install QoS capable switches and routers. With such managed switches, the VoIP platform can inform the network that it is trying to send /receive important voice data that will be tagged with special QoS markings. The voice traffic can then take priority over data traffic. While this may slow down the data transfer a little, but you will not miss the important business calls that will sound clear.

Tagging Voice Packets

A VoIP phone system can tag your voice packets with QoS information and the calls within your company’s networks will sound good. There are different methods to improve quality control over the network and this also includes your networking equipment. While looking for best VoIP service for small business, it is advisable to consult an independent telecom procurement company. If you have few employees and do not have many networking needs, then advanced equipment may not be required. But if you want robust processing and management capabilities, then 4-5 alternatives must be checked before money is invested in any particular set. This is where the services of independent consultants prove helpful.

Upgrading from legacy systems to VoIP may call for significant investment and to ensure that you get good returns on such upgrade, it makes sense to care for the Quality of Service too. The QoS can kick in when there is a bottleneck on the network and it can decide which traffic is more important than the other when there is a heavy usage of the line. The very idea of QoS is to ensure that transmission rates, error rates, and other characteristics are calculated and overall service is made user-friendly.

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