6 Quick and Easy Ways to Improve VoIP Call Quality

Sam O’Brien

By Sam O’Brien, RingCentral

So, you’ve transferred your company’s telephone service to voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP). You’ll naturally be delighted with the cost-savings. VoIP can and should be a smart investment for your business.

But the switch to internet-based calls can present some challenges, with poor call quality chief among them.

If you’ve noticed a drop in call quality, you might also have found that business has become frustratingly slow. Customer relations – which you were hoping to improve – may be suffering, and your staff are probably becoming increasingly frustrated.

Here are six quick and easy ways to improve the quality of your VoIP calls.

1. Invest in quality headsets. Problems with the quality of your VoIP calls could be hardware-related. Quite simply, if you’re relying on a sub-standard kit, you won’t fully enjoy the benefits of using VoIP.

Cheap headsets are cheap for a reason. The microphone, comfort level and material durability may all be poor, but where cheap manufacturing really lets you down is with poor quality cabling.

Cables that are thin and poorly insulated will have a noticeable impact on audio clarity. It’s worth it to invest in new headsets that have short cables with a good amount of insulation. And if those cables look damaged or frayed, fix them. Simple.

2. Get rid of that jitterbug. A VoIP system breaks up the soundwaves from your voice into different data packages. They should then be sent to the receiver in chronological order, should being the key word here.

However, your call may suffer from improper queueing. Maybe there are network errors or poor configuration. Whatever the reason, data packages sometimes arrive in the wrong order. Your data (your voice) will arrive scrambled and low in quality. This is known as jitter.

If it’s a minor issue, you might get away with simply upgrading to a Category 6 (CAT6) Ethernet cable. Otherwise, fix the common jitter problem by installing and using jitter buffers. Packages will be more organized and delivered in a constant, evenly spaced stream.

3. Upgrade to a VoIP-prioritized router. One of the biggest mistakes VoIP callers make is using their small business router for everything. If you’re using the same router for data and voice calls, then it has to be a powerful router that can handle those demands. Otherwise, the quality of your VoIP calls will suffer.

Prioritize your VoIP traffic. If that’s not possible with your current router, get a new one. Specifically, a VoIP-optimized one.

These range in price and can get pretty costly, but choose a model that best reflects the size of your business and your VoIP traffic. It’s a good idea to buy a router that supports Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and virtual LAN (VLAN), as these added extras are sure to improve data reliability.

4. Ditch the Wi-Fi for DECT. Countless devices within your building could interfere with your Wi-Fi connection. The strength of that Wi-Fi connection will also vary throughout your building. If you’re accessing your VoIP through your cell phone’s Wi-Fi connection, then you won’t be …