For businesses, switching to VoIP is a big investment. Setting up infrastructure, equipment and network will cost. Whether this expenditure is worth the amount depends on how your organization ends up using your VoIP service. You have to know how to make the most of it. The first step is setting up support systems that ensure optimal functioning of your VoIP – foremost here is your VoIP competitor price monitoring monitoring.
VoIP monitoring is a requirement when you want to reap the benefits of and savings from digital telecommunications. Through consistent and constant testing – where monitoring is competitive intelligence continuous and at set intervals – you can predict and correct service problems before these affect your business’ day-to-day. Remember that VoIP quality depends on your network performance – and network performance is subject to server downtime, equipment problems and network traffic. These affect your general goal of having good VoIP service 24/7.
There are several alternatives here. You can go all out and invest in expensive solutions like Appneta. Costs here can be prohibitive. Plus you need to invest in additional manpower and maintenance works. More affordable options include VisualWare and VoIP Spear, popular VoIP testing services that have marked differences.
How VoIP Monitoring Works For You
VoIP monitoring takes away the guessing when it comes to how your VoIP service works alongside your network. When you rely on digital communication, you’d want to know about perceptible impairments and service downtimes. You’d want to be sure that you remain accessible to your clients and partners all the time.
24/7 connectivity and little or no voice quality impairment are what you’d want in a VoIP and network service.
A standard measure here that you’d want to look at is the MOS. MOS stands for mean opinion score. Before it was used in VoIP, the term referred to the subjective assessment of call quality where testers listened in a quiet room and gave scores based on perceptible or imperceptible impairments. In VoIP, the scoring system remains the same. However, since this involves network quality testing, it has become less subjective. An MOS is still graded between 1 and 5 – with 5 being the best – but general network performance standards/ measures are now the basis.
Other performance measures include latency and packet loss, two crucial components of a well-functioning VoIP service. Latency pertains to delays in packet transmission from either end of the spectrum. It is likely be because of packetization, propagation or jitter buffer. There is acceptable latency – after all, packets necessarily travel through network and equipment. However, it can become disruptive and make conversations unintelligible. Likewise, packet loss, even by small amounts, is unacceptable as you lose bits of your conversation, making it unintelligible.