Telecommunications

For entrepreneurs, means of communication are a vital tool. If company owners cannot be easily reached by their customers, it will be difficult to do business. And they will not win any new customers.

Progress in the telecommunications sector means today that even someone who is very mobile can be reached 24/7. Telecommunications company are constantly coming out with new devices and services to ensure this extensive accessibility. However, before buying a device, signing up or entering into a contract, you first need to ascertain your requirements, and in particular, your customers’ requirements.

Internet telephony

Telephony over IP (ToIP) or Voice over IP (VoIP) is telephony using a computer network, based on the Internet Protocol. In the case of Telephony over IP (IP being short for Internet Protocol), a distinction is made between use in companies and institutions (corporate telephony) and public use on the internet (internet telephony).

The main difference with traditional telephony is that information is not transferred via the usual telephone network. Information reaches its destination in the form of data packets via unspecified channels on a network.

For the user, making a call in itself is not any different. This technology therefore uses the existing infrastructure of a network to transmit speech. The objective of the hardware and software developer is to obtain quality and reliability equaling those of traditional telephony.

In principle, IP telephones can be used to make calls anywhere in the world via the internet. If two users have internet access, calls can be very good value, regardless of their location. Skype, Zoom and Teams for example, are free telephone services based on a fast broadband connection (ADL for example).

Mobile applications and devices

With PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and smartphones (combination of PDA and mobile phone), you can write and read your emails when you travel. Of course, to do this, the area where you are needs to be covered by your mobile telephony provider. You can also browse the internet or download data with these devices. Mobile phones, smartphones or PDAs can be connected to a laptop and then allow internet browsing.

UMTS cards (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) or laptops with integrated UMTS support are more practical however. As these devices have become more powerful, you can now work with Word, Excel and PDF documents or view your calendar in Outlook.

In Switzerland, leading telecommunications companies offer contracts under which a company does not have to install a server infrastructure for these functions. However, this type of contract is usually very expensive and is only suitable for very mobile entrepreneurs or external services.