Today many businesses are going ‘digital-first’ to keep them at the cutting edge of innovation, efficiency, and growth. This means they’re likely to have migrated their phone systems and workloads to the cloud.
However, businesses working with legacy connectivity simply cannot keep up with the performance and flexibility that is required for a digital-first strategy, and they risk being left behind by their competitors and customers.
Thankfully a solution is being found in SoGEA and FTTP.
But first, what is legacy connectivity?
Legacy connectivity can refer to your businesses technology, systems, hardware, that you use to access the internet.
Technology becomes legacy for several reasons. It may be considered an out of date or end of life product, out of support from the supplier, impossible to update, no longer cost-effective or a cyber security risk.
Traditional fixed telephone lines PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) are now considered legacy networks, and so the switch off is planned to go ahead in 2025.
SoGEA and FTTP are here to replace traditional telephony and can offer you cheap, reliable and speedy internet access.
Here’s why it’s important to update your legacy systems.
You’re working with outdated technology
A legacy phone system uses technology that is very expensive to maintain and does not deliver the level of flexibility required in today’s working environments.
Typically, these legacy phone systems use traditional phone lines (connected to the phone company) and are not IP-based (work using the internet).
SoGEA gives you the flexibility to support your business and the way you work, with no need for phone lines. It can support a cloud-hosted phone system, such as VoIP or SIP services to an on-site phone system until full fibre services become available. Where an older phone system is not compatible with SIP, a SIP convertor can be used in some cases.
It’s affecting customer experience
Customer experience is everything in today’s competitive market. There is a risk with legacy connectivity that you may not be able to reach customers instantly, or at all when they have an issue.
In a world where customers expect instant contact, you need a phone system that offers this so you can be in touch with them at any time, from anywhere.
This is vital for contact centres too, in order to provide a quality caller experience. This is easy to achieve with FTTP and a cloud contact centre solution such as Onecom OneContact, but you’ll need to make sure that anyone looking to connect to the services from outside the office, such as home and hybrid workers, also have access to these technologies.
Your business is growing
One of the biggest issues with older connectivity systems is their lack of scalability and flexibility. For instance, if you’re looking to move offices, add a new location or adopt hybrid working, legacy systems can be complex and costly to pick up and move around.
If you decide to take your legacy networking and phone equipment with you to the new location, figure in the cost of uninstalling it, transporting, and reinstalling it. Once you do, you’ll see that the cost can be greater than an entirely new telephone system.
Switching to a modern system like SoGEA, combined with hosted VoIP solutions, when moving offices or expanding locations will not only save your business time and money, but will give you the opportunity to add useful features that you never had with your old legacy phone system.
Also, most legacy phone systems have a maximum number of phones they are able to support before having to add additional ports and buying more of the same equipment.
But with SoGEA and FTTP, the only thing you would need to increase with your business is your bandwidth – a much cheaper option than adding more ports.
Allow for flexibility
With more companies going remote or offering employees opportunities to work from home, you need a connectivity system that can meet this demand. SoGEA and FTTP offer flexibility for your mobile workforce.
FTTP brings super-fast WiFi, with download speeds of up to 900 Mb/s. This will have a useful impact on your business as it will allow you to maintain your networks and keep communications flowing between your clients, customers and stakeholders. Also, with FTTP providing higher bandwidth and lower latency, your business is able to process high volumes of data much quicker.
It’s vital for business strategy
Successful business strategies are built on the premise of connectivity and being able to connect employees. Connectivity not only dictates how we work, but how quickly we are able to get things done and how well we are able to collaborate with one another.
Without effective internal communications, chaos can happen. Your business may become rife with miscommunication and mix-ups which gives your customers a lasting bad impression of your business.
With the ISDN/PSTN switch off there is no good reason to continue using old phone lines. Especially, when you can save money, get more reliability and have calls that can meet your business demand.
For more information about SoGEA or FTTP, contact our experts on 03300 888 999.