How The IoT Will Power VoIP In The Future

With IoT as a mighty power that will enable future smart cities, homes, offices, and agriculture - to name a few, VoIP technology will also advance and diversify its functions. In recent years, VoIP technology has become a prominent platform for customer-to-business communication, with IoT adding more options to automate tasks, both in business and personal use.

Many of the IoT-enabled functions will be connected to a smart device use - a smartphone or tablet. But, which applications of VoIP specifically will the IoT technology enhance? Here are some ideas.

• Home/office smart space with VoIP

When talking about the individual VoIP use, IoT integrations will enable further "smartification" of homes and offices. For example, an alarm that went off can start a chain reaction that ends with calling or texting your VoIP number. Your VoIP phone can also send the collected health data to your smart home. Imagine this scenario: your smart home can tune the right setting for your arrival. Like a diligent housekeeper, it turns the soft lights and some calm music on, or even fills a bath because your heart rate device sent the information to your VoIP that indicated you've had an intense, stressful day. 

Smart offices may be a perfect place to apply the full power of IoT and VoIP integration. All the processes that include collecting, sorting, and analyzing data can be enhanced with the use of VoIP and IoT. Even the virtual offices - cloud storage that keeps the company's data and gets the feed for dispersed VoIP phones can set a set of commands that get triggered by certain events - specific kinds of VoIP traffic, data exchange, etc.

• Scheduling repairs on cars and homes

The more devices you connect to an IoT network connected with VoIP, the more automated reports and activities you can have. Your VoIP phone can be the "central" which will monitor and control these activities. The VoIP technology allows multiple users to access the shared data, which can help initiate and manage repairs on cars and homes.

• Data collection 

One of the most exciting possible uses of IoT and VoIP in the future is the voice recognition technology to automatically collect and process data. IoT will enable the registering of frequently asked questions, "keywords" that pop-up regularly in conversations, etc. - sending the data to further processing. This feature will benefit mostly the companies that use VoIP for communicating with their customers, either as customer service, tech support, or a call-center. In close collaboration with cloud services that business phone providers offer, VoIP providers will diversify their services to answer customer demand.

• Security - 24 hours of network monitoring and communication

One of the core ideas behind the invention of IoT is the automatization of operations. VoIP security relies on network monitoring and staying alert to any unexpected activities - possible hacker breaches. IoT can help the automation of security by setting a chain of reactions in case anything suspicious happens. That way, some of the security processes get done by the computer, instead of alarming humans.

• International call transfers to the designated language's country

VoIP business phones are go-to solutions for enterprises that use call centers or customer and tech support. If you have a centralized, trade-mark phone number that your customers can call from anywhere in the world, IoT can help distribute the call to a proper agent. The phone number or IP address that calls your central number will show the country or region, and forward the call directly to the adequate receiver-agent.

• Call quality assurance

There are many causes of poor quality VoIP calls, one of them being the network jitter. IoT might be able to recognize the issues and deploy a jitter buffer just as much as necessary so as not to overburden the network. Network monitoring, a crucial factor in ensuring the quality and security of VoIP phone systems, can benefit immensely from setting up IoT devices that will improve calls and data sending and receiving.

• Integrating VoIP system with business CRM platforms

The integration of IoT with VoIP technologies brings new possibilities of enhanced business that involves human interaction, and machine learning and automation. The applications of these technologies will depend on the way we'll be able to imagine the improvements. IoT is already bringing value to various processes that include remote automation; VoIP can apply the facets of these possibilities to improve the quality of customer experience and business efficiency. The integrations are already taking place, but the process is ongoing, with more opportunities arising every day.