How To Optimise Your VoIP System For Better Performance

Phone calls shouldn’t have to be hard work, but as soon as your VoIP system starts to act up, you’ll know about it. If a customer on the line has to repeat what they said for the third time, what should be a straightforward conversation becomes frustrating for both parties.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a clever bit of technology that uses the Internet to make calls, instead of traditional phone systems that use copper wiring. Businesses have made the switch for various reasons – for one, it’s much more affordable than landlines. And given that landlines will be phased out in January 2027, now is the ideal time for businesses to look for alternatives.

VoIP happens to be at the top of the list of those alternatives because, in addition to being cheaper, it’s also much more flexible. Most VoIP providers have an app that you can download onto your existing devices so there isn’t much need for hardware and you can add or decrease users as your demand requires it.

However, because it’s reliant on the Internet, it also means that your call quality is heavily dependent on your network. Any instability in your connection will be immediately felt in your calls.

The good news though is that if you don’t think your system is performing as well as it should, there are ways to improve it without needing to rush to replace the phones or fork out for a more expensive broadband package.

Figure Out When Things Go Wrong

Before you fiddle with settings, try and see if there’s a pattern first. Is just one person affected or the majority of the office? Do the mornings start out fine with no issues but by lunch time, the complaints are streaming in? This will point you in the right direction of where to start.

If it’s one person, their headset may be faulty or they could be sitting too far away from the router. But if it’s everyone, the shared network may be at fault.

It’s all good and well to note that the phones are acting up but making notes on when, how and who’s being affected will give you much more to work with when figuring out a solution.

Give The Internet Connection A Proper Check

If you run a speed test that indicates a healthy-looking connection, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the network is handling calls well. The time that you run the test also matters. If you do it in the morning before staff arrives to join meetings or upload files, chances are you won’t get an accurate result.

Rather test during a “normal” busy period and you should check the upload speed as well, not just the download speed. Broadband providers like to make a fuss about download speeds, but that’s only really half the conversation. Your voice still needs to leave the office reliably so, yes, upload speed matters here too.

If speed doesn’t appear to be the issue, then you can consider jitter, latency and packet loss. These happen when speech is delayed on calls or you don’t hear anything at all and the call drops. Your provider will be able to give you the data on these issues.

Don’t Let Your Calls Compete With Everything Else

Office connections need to handle a fair amount in addition to phone calls. It’s easy to forget that there are regular backups happening, software downloads, shared documents and slide decks that need to be uploaded before presentations.

If you find that your call quality dips when the network gets busy, you can look into something called Quality of Service (QoS). It’s a setting on your router that lets the network prioritise certain types of traffic over others. You can set it so that VoIP calls take priority, therefore they are allocated more bandwidth to avoid delays and interruptions.

Sometimes, you just need to change the scheduling of things. Try to keep large cloud backups and downloads for the late afternoon or even evenings if possible.

Check The Small Things Too

Even though everyone may be convinced that the broadband is blame, it’s easy to overlook something as simple as the headset. Check the cable, swap it out with another to test if you have to and also look at the position of the microphone.

It’s also quite unhelpful if you’re wearing a headset but the laptop microphone is doing the listening. The person on the other end of the call will end up hearing your voice at a distance and chances are they’ll probably catch some of the office gossip in the background too. Not ideal.

It almost goes without saying to keep your VoIP apps and phone firmware regularly updated to new, supported versions. You’d be surprised at how often call quality is affected by outdated software. If calls are still dropping, your provider can check the router and firewall settings against their requirements in case there’s an interference.