Calling the future

At Callagenix we believe that the future of the telephone system, particularly for businesses is via the internet. So it was interesting to see a report from the National Centre for Health Statistics in the USA which predicted that by 2018 only 6% of Americans will be using home telephones via standard phone lines.

With the rest of the domestic population relying on mobile and broadband for their calls it is easy to predict the eventual demise of the standard telephone system. After all, with such a small percentage using telephone lines there is no incentive to maintain them when faults develop. So what could this mean for the UK?

Co-incidentally Ofcom have just released an interactive map of the UK showing broadband speed information. Unfortunately for those looking to use this map as an aid to help with house hunting and business decisions the map only drills down as far as administrative area. So, for example, the county of Devon has an average Broadband take up of 69%, average sync. speed of 6.4Mbit/s but with 17.2% getting less than 2Mbit/s. Also within Devon a lucky 17% have access to superfast broadband.

Anyone looking to move their internet based business to Devon and relying on these connection figures should beware as the figures given conceal the fact that many rural areas within Devon have no access to broadband at all. This is the same for other rural areas in the country with places such as Wales, the North of the UK including Cumbria and Northern Scotland faring worse than Devon.

For those businesses which do have access to a reliable broadband connection, the future of telephony is via the internet. With cheaper calls linked to telephone recording and interactive switchboard those businesses which embrace internet telephony will find that marketing and sales can climb to new heights.

No longer will the cost of telephone calls restrict marketing campaigns. VoIP calls are cheaper than landline calls. No longer will customers be pushed from pillar to post around departments. Interactive switchboards can be programmed to swiftly and automatically route customers to the right person, even recognising the telephone number of regular callers and switching them without the need for “push button 1”. And no longer will clients be told to phone another number for a separate office as all departments can be seamlessly joined within the one switchboard router.

Within the 6% left on basic landline there will always be those who for valid reasons are unable to switch to other methods of communication. For the rest and particularly those in business the death of the land line is an opportunity waiting to call.