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NewsGlobe: Currents
VoIP’s come a long way, baby
High definition now a differentiator for hosted voice-over-IP service
by Jim Barthold
Voice-over-IP has come a long way from the days when a
VoIP sales pitch included a proposal, a wing and a prayer.
LightEdge Solutions, a provider of managed voice, data and
IT business services for small-medium businesses (SMBs) is
using high definition Polycom phones as differentiators on top
of the cost and features benefits that everyone now expects
to get with IP telephony.
“Supporting the (HD) technology and bringing it to the table
gives LightEdge a unique advantage over our competition,”
said Jed Schmidt, VoIP product manager for Des Moines,
Iowa-based LightEdge. “Since I’ve been in the
telecommunications industry the only buzz I’ve really seen is
around feature enhancements of a hosted VoIP platform
versus staying to a traditional PBX.”
LightEdge, which owns and manages its own Private IP
backbone, already offers the cost and application advantages
of VoIP in a reliable package, he said. Those conventional IP
phones don’t “necessarily provide voice quality any better
than any other phone. The real benefit of going to an IP
phone system or a hosted VoIP system is the feature-rich
application that you get; the ability to have an advanced
feature set.”
HD is an advanced feature on top of that.
“The standard of voice quality is raised … after you hear it
and experience it versus traditional call quality,” he said.
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