Mobile Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has ominously transformed the business ecosphere. Nowadays, with the advent of mobile VoIP, business owners and their employees are no longer tied to the office desks for the communication. The VoIP phone systems and apps have provided ease to on-the-go travels and work from home.
Mobile VoIP has altered businesses’ communications and operations techniques. Apart from advantages like low pricing and accessibility, the profits through the adoption of mobile VoIP are unquestionable. Various service providers have evolved into the ecosystem and offer a wide range of products and services, beginning with varied calling plans, phone capabilities, and other relevant features. The mobile VoIP end users are benefitted with these changes, and thus, they are expected to alter the mobile communications environment in the near future.
Communication needs can be overcome as VoIP uses packets, wherein most of the information can be carried over the network. Also, VoIP provides access to innovative applications that potentially helps employees or individuals to be more agile and productive. VoIP solutions projected to be used for the business purpose have developed into unified communication services which help in all the communications including voice mails, web calls, phone calls, faxes, and email.
Impact analysis: Changing BYOD policy
According to a report by the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI), 41 states in the U.S. have decreased or have eliminated their old telephony systems and have started adopting mobile VoIP technology. Apart from the benefits that mobile VoIP technology fetches to business sectors, there are other factors as well that contribute to its growth:
- Lowered total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Flexibility
- Changing BYOD trends
The total cost of ownership has ended through mobile VoIP as the voice and data traffic have combined to form a single network, eliminating the maintenance and infrastructure redundancies. In addition, mobile VoIP has made the international and other calls inexpensive through various sources such as wireless hotspots, LTE, 3G, and 4G networks. VoIP technology reduces the cost incurred up to 40 percent.
Mobile VoIP offers flexibility to modern businesses. These businesses steadily perform their functions with the adoption of mobile VoIP technology regardless of location and network. The mobile VoIP users can connect in real-time and also contribute in any decision-making practice. A study by Rittenhouse has found that companies with flexible technologies like VoIP used for working from remote locations experienced a 20 percent increase in productivity. The methods of communication like softphones, call forwarding, and mobile apps reduce the on-hold time and enable employees to answer calls from any place. In addition, other features such as video calls, meetings, and conference calls allow hosting the company meetings easily.
Recently, a survey conducted by Grand View Research states that, with the changing trends in BYOD, more companies are allowing their employees to use smartphones, tablets, and laptops to access the network for communication. Among these, smartphones usage is around 56 percent, tablets around 36 percent, and laptops hold the share at approximately 24 percent. The growing adoption of mobile VoIP is also endorsed by the current employment trends such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend. Currently, an IT or any other company allows employees to use personal electronics such as mobile devices in the workplace. This later permits the employers and the employees to telecommute.
Future of global communications industry
Currently, people are moving towards mobile devices and leaving the traditional desktop devices. Several countries such as the U.S. have ended the services provided by copper landline and pushing the telecom companies to invest in the development of mobile VoIP and related readily available modes of communication. Mobile devices have various advantages such as enhanced battery life, and high network connectivity, and thus gaining traction by the business persons. Thus, switching to mobile VoIP have proved to be beneficial to these businesses. Planning a meeting, emails, conference calls, and others are efficiently undertaken by the hardware and software of the smartphone devices. This has bumped the mobile VoIP visionaries into investing more capitals headed for assuring the smooth coming of mobile communications and other operations.
According to the report published by Grand View Research, the analysts have projected the Mobile VoIP Market to withstand a CAGR of around 20.4 percent from 2016 through 2024.
AI to boost the Mobile VoIP market
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is anticipated to affect the mobile VoIP systems. AI can be used before setting up a call. AI can be used to identify and diagnose the poor quality of a call, significantly resolving issues such as poor bandwidth, inappropriate network configuration, and high latency. With the integration of AI, human intervention will be reduced and will help in offering an efficient network for communication.
The AI-based unified communications will be helpful for analyzing the email correspondence, speech patterns, and conversations to produce valuable insights. These insights of consumer behavior and sales performance will be useful for marketing firms to improve and increase their sales tactics and also provide better services to its customers.
Integration with virtual assistants
Predictions and assessments have also shown that AI will be helpful for answering calls. With the advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP), and development of Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA) such as Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, and Alexa are useful in understanding the voice or text commands and interacting with customers. If they are employed correctly, they are likely to surge the resolution rates and lessen the time consumed on basic chores.
About the author
Neelam is working as a Research Analyst in Grand View Research Inc. She holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering. Prior to her role as Research Analyst in ICT domain, she specializes in wireless devices, providing quantitative and qualitative analysis on next-generation technologies. Neelam has worked on Communication Services, and Electronic Devices in the firm.
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