The PSTN switch-off — the BT programme to retire traditional copper telephone lines by January 2027 — is pushing a lot of small businesses to think seriously about VoIP for the first time. If you haven't already moved to hosted telephony, you probably need to in the next two years.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony sends voice calls over your internet connection rather than a dedicated telephone line. The technology is mature and the call quality, when implemented well, is indistinguishable from a traditional line. When implemented badly, it's frustrating.
The Benefits Are Real
Cost savings are the headline benefit. A hosted VoIP system from a provider like 8x8, RingCentral, Gamma or Microsoft Teams Phone typically costs £10-20 per user per month, including the phone number, calling plan and access to features that would cost significantly more with a traditional PBX. For businesses with a legacy on-premise phone system and expensive support contracts, the savings can be substantial.
Flexibility is genuinely valuable. Staff can receive calls on their desk phone, mobile app, or laptop regardless of location. For businesses with remote workers, this is significant — a staff member working from home appears on the same extension as their office desk phone.
Features that required expensive add-on hardware in traditional systems — call recording, voicemail to email, call analytics, auto-attendant — are typically included at no additional cost in modern VoIP platforms.
The Risks to Manage
Internet dependency is the obvious one. If your internet connection goes down, your phones go down too — unless you have a failover connection or a mobile fallback plan. This is manageable but it needs to be planned, not discovered during an outage.
Network quality matters more than most people expect. Voice calls are sensitive to latency, jitter and packet loss in a way that browsing and email are not. A network that works fine for general business use may still produce choppy, breaking calls if it's not properly configured for voice traffic. QoS (Quality of Service) settings that prioritise voice traffic are usually needed.
Power dependency is less obvious. Traditional phones work when the power is out because the telephone line carries power. VoIP phones require mains power and a working internet router. A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) on your router and switch maintains telephony during short power outages.
Choosing a Provider
Look for a provider that offers SIP trunking or a hosted PBX with a UK presence, UK-based support, and clear SLAs. The market includes many providers and quality varies.
Microsoft Teams Phone is worth specific mention for Microsoft 365 businesses — if your team is already using Teams, integrating calling into the same platform simplifies communications significantly. The per-user licensing is straightforward to add to an existing 365 subscription.
Avoid cheap consumer-grade VoIP services for business use. The reliability, support quality and feature set are typically not appropriate.
The Migration Process
A good migration involves number porting (transferring your existing phone numbers to the new provider), testing before go-live, and a period of parallel running if possible. Don't cancel your existing service before the new one is confirmed working with your ported numbers.