Phone bills that creep up. Wiring that needs a technician for every new desk. A line that goes quiet the moment you leave the office. That's the landline experience for plenty of businesses and professionals. VoIP fixes much of it while bringing a few tradeoffs of its own. Here's how VoIP and the PSTN compare on business benefits, costs, reliability, and security.
The Business Benefits and Advantages of VoIP
A landline ties your desk phone (and the phone number associated with it) to a wall jack. Hosted VoIP ties it to your account. That one difference changes how your team works.
Answer calls anywhere, on any device
A missed call can often mean a lost customer or sale. With a landline, a call to your desk phone rings at your desk and nowhere else.
A VoIP service sends the call to where you are working. Your desk phone, laptop, and mobile app can ring at the same time. Whichever device answers first takes the call. That works for remote staff, hybrid teams, and people who spend the day on a warehouse floor.
Larger spaces get a boost too. With call parking, you put a caller on hold and pick them up from any other phone in the building. No one has to run back to their desk phone to take a call.
OnSIP builds its own softphone apps for web, desktop, and mobile. If your laptop dies or you're out at a client or vendor’s site, your phone line comes with you.
One platform instead of three vendors
Many businesses pay one company for phone service, another for business SMS, and a third for video meetings. Three bills. Three logins. Three things to manage when something breaks.
VoIP providers bundle these tools into one platform, known as unified communications as a service (UCaaS). Voice, video, and messaging live in a single softphone app. The provider hosts and maintains the system in the cloud, so there are no servers for your team to monitor and maintain. The result is one login, one invoice, and one place to manage your phone system.
Add or remove lines as your team changes
Growing a landline system means new wiring, a technician visit, and a wait. Shrinking one means paying for lines no one uses. VoIP scales along with your current staffing count. Add a user, assign a number, and they're ready to call. Closing a location or ending a seasonal contract? Simply remove the user and any associated phone system features that you no longer need and you’re good to go. Your phone system will keep pace with your business instead of throwing up roadblocks to your growth, profitability, or success.
Cost
VoIP is much cheaper than landline service. Copper wiring is expensive! And to have landlines in your office, you need to run wiring to every phone there. With VoIP, all you need is WiFi. Your desk phones may still have cords running out, but that’s likely Power over Ethernet (PoE) to supply a direct connection to your phone.
After the hardware, VoIP is cost-effective because it runs on the Internet, so no need for stacked fees from telco companies just for supplying connection. Telco fees notoriously pile up. From adding a new line to hidden charges you wouldn’t see unless you combed through your bill, there are a hundred ways to lose money on PSTN phone bills. OnSIP hosted VoIP, on the other hand, offers flat fees.
Landlines cost quite a bit in time as well. Setup and wiring is a hassle that no one wants to deal with. Setting up a VoIP system like OnSIP will cost you little more than an hour!
Is VoIP as Reliable as a Landline?
Where landlines hold up
A corded landline phone draws power from the phone line itself. When your building loses electricity, it can keep working. That's why landlines earned their reputation for emergencies.
Two limits apply. Cordless handsets need wall power for their base station. And the line still runs through your carrier's equipment, which relies on backup batteries that don't last forever.
Copper itself is also changing. Carriers are retiring it in stages, so in some areas the line you're counting on may not be there for long.
Where VoIP has challenges
VoIP runs on two things: local power and your internet connection. Lose either one at the office, and your desk phones go quiet. Network strain matters too. A crowded connection can make audio choppy. Calls sound best when voice traffic has the bandwidth it needs.
How to close the gap
Most VoIP outages come down to a few weak points. Each one has a simple fix:
- Battery backup: Plug your router, modem, and PoE switch into a battery backup unit. Short outages won't take your phones down.
- Mobile app: Your team can take calls on their cell phones through the app. That works even when the office has no power.
- Failover call forwarding: Set a rule to send calls to mobile numbers when your phones go offline. Customers still reach a person.
- Backup internet: Add a second connection, or a cellular failover device, so one provider's outage doesn't stop your calls.
- Voice prioritization: Set your router to give calls priority over downloads and video streams.
What your provider should handle
Your setup is half the equation. The other half is your provider's network. Look for redundant data centers, automatic failover, and a public status page that shows what's happening in real time.
A corded landline wins in a blackout. VoIP wins nearly everywhere else because calls follow your people, not your building. A little prep closes the gap that's left.
Disadvantages of VoIP
There’s one obvious answer here: Power. If you lose power or your WiFi cuts out, you’ve lost your VoIP service until it’s back. Landlines run independently of regular power lines. That’s why horror movie bad guys always cut the phone lines. (See: Michael Myers in every Halloween movie.) This is helpful during a blackout because you can still call emergency services.
However, this only works for literal landlines—any portable phone with a handset still needs electricity to send the signal from the base to the device. Also, landlines run separate because the copper wiring feeds straight to the phone company. If the phone company loses power too, you’ll have landline service only as long as the backup battery system has juice. After that, you’re out of luck too.
So Which One Do You Choose?
So there you have it: the pros and cons of phone service options. We have our opinions, but we also recognize that each business has different needs, priorities, and Internet connections. Someone in rural Americana where 2G is still the best connection would benefit from legacy landlines that crisscrossed the country decades ago. For the bootstrapped startup in the city, VoIP stands out. Whichever your choice, we are here to help guide you to your best phone system option.