Moving from traditional phone lines or an old on-site phone system to cloud VoIP is one of the easiest technology wins for a small business. Staff can answer the main number from anywhere, voicemail arrives by email, and adding a new starter takes minutes rather than a technician visit.
Most problems with VoIP come from skipping the preparation. Here is what to check before you switch.
Keeping your numbers: porting
In Canada, you can keep your existing numbers when you change provider. The process is called porting, and it works like this:
- Gather your details. You need a recent bill from your current carrier. The account number, the name on the account and the service address on the port request must match that carrier’s records exactly. Mismatches are the most common reason ports are rejected.
- Sign a letter of authorisation. This allows the new provider to request the numbers on your behalf.
- Agree a port date. Business ports can take anywhere from several days to a few weeks, depending on the carrier and how many numbers are involved.
- Do not cancel your old service first. Cancelling before the port completes can release the number, and getting it back is not guaranteed. The old service ends when the port finishes.
Toll-free numbers can be moved as well, through a separate process.
9-1-1 and your address
With VoIP, emergency calls rely on the service address registered for each number or extension. That is what emergency services receive, so it has to be accurate:
- Register the correct address for every location and every number
- Update it when you move, as part of the office move plan
- Warn staff who take a desk phone or a softphone elsewhere that 9-1-1 may be given the office address, and make sure they know how to state their location
- Label phones with a short 9-1-1 notice, and include it in onboarding
Is your internet ready?
Each call needs only a modest amount of bandwidth, roughly 100 kbps in each direction, but it needs a stable connection. Voice suffers from delay and jitter long before it runs out of bandwidth. Check:
- Business-grade internet, ideally fibre, with enough upload capacity for your busiest hour
- Quality of service on your firewall, so voice traffic is prioritised over downloads and backups
- A backup connection, such as an LTE failover, if phones are business-critical
- Power. Desk phones usually take power from the network switch, so if the switch is not on a battery backup, the phones go down in a power cut
The lines everyone forgets
Before cancelling copper lines, walk the building and find everything that uses one:
- Alarm panels and monitoring
- Elevator emergency phones
- Fax machines, which can move to an online fax service
- Door entry systems and card payment terminals on older setups
Some of these can use an adapter on the new system. Others, particularly alarm and elevator lines, may need to stay on a dedicated service. Check with the alarm or elevator company before anything is disconnected.
Features worth setting up on day one
- An auto-attendant (“press 1 for service, 2 for accounts”) with business-hours and after-hours routing
- Ring groups or call queues, so calls reach the next available person
- Voicemail to email, including shared voicemail for the main number
- Mobile and desktop apps, so staff can take calls away from their desk
- Microsoft Teams calling, if the business already lives in Teams
A pre-switch checklist
- Latest bills from your current carrier, with the account details
- A list of every number, including fax, toll-free and rarely used lines
- Service addresses confirmed for 9-1-1
- An internet review, with a backup connection if needed
- Copper-line dependencies checked: alarm, elevator, fax, door entry
- Call flow designed: auto-attendant, groups, after-hours and holiday routing
- A port date agreed, with the old service left running until it completes
Our business VoIP service handles the porting, call flow design, handsets, apps and the network changes that keep call quality clear.