Making a call with a deskphone

Calling with a hardphone

What are hardphones? They are simple: telephones that have been on almost every desk since, say, the 1950s. For decades, they have provided excellent service. And they still do, despite the rapid rise of softphones. While we're convinced that the future belongs to softphones that are as affordable as they are comprehensive, there's nothing wrong with a good desk phone. But which desk phone should you choose?

Almost all office phones sold in 2019 are VoIP phones. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. These are telephones that enable voice traffic over the internet. Each VoIP desk phone converts voice into data packets that are transported over the internet. A VoIP hardphone is connected to the local (company) network and makes a digital internet connection with the actual telephone network. This is done fully automatically via a user name and password. This is called a SIP account.

Which VoIP phone should I choose?

That depends very much on your requirements. There are a large number of brands which all offer high quality VoIP hardphones. De Belfabriek has a slight preference for Cisco hardphones. Because of the good quality and reliability, but also because basically every ICT-provider knows the devices and therefore knows how to install them.

About the installation

If you need a limited number of VoIP phones, installation is easy to do yourself. This of course results in cost savings. The procedure is always similar: you enter a username and password for each hardphone, then the device logs onto the telephone network via the Internet. And you are in business. If you need VoIP devices on more than eight workstations, want to forward calls between each other, have a local voicemail for each device and would like to work with a central address book, things become more complex. In this example, it is advisable to work with a local telephone exchange that is digitally connected to a telephony platform via a SIP trunk. You can order the SIP trunk from the Belfabriek. However, the installation of the hardphones does not go through us, but through your ICT specialist.

Conclusion

If you want to use VoIP devices on <8 workstations, we advise you to take care of this yourself. Especially if there are no further requirements (voicemails, central address books, etc.) for the solution. For 8+ desktop devices and/or a more advanced set-up, it is smarter to involve an ICT party. For self-installation: we are happy to support you by telephone in entering the login data so that you can get the hardphone devices working quickly (and properly!).