The VoIP alternative for call shops

By: David Yuri

What you commonly know as a phone shop, a telecenter or a call shop can now become more cost-effective and more advantageous by means of VoIP enabled features. In fact, there are many parts of the world where the phenomenon has already been put into practice and what resulted was a beneficial call shop market strategy. VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) is already broadly acknowledged as very likely the most economizing (budget saving), time-saving and practical manner of communicating on a long-distance basis.

When broadband phone services (another name for Voice over Internet Protocol, strictly touching upon the most appropriate “channel” for telephone communication over Internet) combine with the plus points offered by the assistance the customer finds in a call shop, then communication is exploited at its peak through: 1) reliable means of voice transfer, since the technology which facilitates VoIP guarantees unfailing voice data conveying; 2) low payment conditions since ITSPs and call shops charge less than a regular landline; 3) profitability for the call shop owner who benefits from the low costs necessary for acquiring VoIP characteristic services and from the customers’ increased confidence in competitive call shop businesses.

The regular call shop – i.e. the private business establishment which provides its customers with the means of initiating and carrying through local or long-distance telephone calls at cut rate costs – can be situated anywhere in a city, from hotel hallways or airport waiting rooms to shopping centers or university campuses. Provided that a high speed Internet connection is made available – a phenomenon which is no longer a novelty nowadays, nor is it difficult or time-consuming to make it operational anywhere in the premises of a city – the same locations and even Internet cafés can be at an advantage from being converted into call shop centers functioning on a VoIP basis.

Of course, the regular call shop which aims at transferring its services to a VoIP operation alternative has to acquire, additional to the Internet connection, the required software and hardware equipment which enables the proper functioning of any VoIP-based call shop. This means that the owner has to make sure that he is in the possession of the software indispensable for the management of his business; such software will provide him with the means of establishing call rates, of obtaining billing reports and other information concerning call tariffs. Additionally, you have to make certain that call routing is operational, which means that, after having made a deal with your VoIP gateway provider, you should be able to operate your calls on a VoIP basis.

Moreover, the hardware and software systems solutions available for working on a VoIP basis should also allow the owner of the VoIP-based call shop to observe in real time the activity going on in a selected number of booths. In other words, basic software for broadband phone services in a telecenter additionally provides the owner and the call operator(s) with a call detail record (frequently known as a CDR in such telephony services) on the basis of which the precise payment for the call can be established. Subsequently, both prepaid and postpaid opportunities are made possible.

To what concerns the network gateways which will allow the proper working of a phone shop operating with the assistance of Voice over Internet Protocol technologies, the common SIP (session initiation protocol) convertible gateways or the standard H.323-compliant gateways are the most reliable and the most cost-effective. Additionally, calls operated from such a phone shop can be forwarded to any local public switched telephone network (PSTN) and they will not suffer any form of delay or any other king of unwanted, ill-timed interruption during the conversation.

All in all, the basic requirements for a phone shop to operate successfully while benefiting from Voice over Internet Protocol superiority are: a computer with an Internet browser (Internet Explorer is reliable and the most commonly employed) and a broadband phone service with telephones. Afterwards, the purchase of the software making possible call display records, call billing and routing to local PSTNs will render your telephone services impeccable.