3CX Call Quality: Good, Better, Best – how to choose what’s right for your business.

You probably already know that there are some important call quality decisions to make when deploying 3CX Phone System into your business, but what do these choices ultimately depend on?

First and foremost, the industry you are in and the values, culture and approach your business has to flexibile working and security. If you are using 3CX in a business location that’s been prepared and optimised for 3CX, your calls will always sound good, but for some businesses having high definition call quality at all times is paramount to their success. To other businesses, especially during the pandemic, it’s far more important to be as flexibile as possible so everyone can work from home. But it’s important to bear in mind that these decisions can have an impact on call quality.

Good Quality Calls vs Flexibility and the 3CX Phone System Options Available

In this Good, Better, Best guide for 3CX call quality, we will walk you through the different options available so you can make the right choice for your business.

Good quality calls with an accepted level of quality risk

If your business values flexibility and remote work the most, the 3CX Web Client and Mobile Apps are the best options, understanding that you won’t always have complete quality control over the environment each call is made from.

The challenges: In this scenario, low mobile signal, poor WiFi reception, saturated networks and devices that are running out of memory can significantly impact the quality of your calls.

How to overcome: There are several things you can do to reduce this risk significantly. These include carrying out a WiFi survey to eliminate dead spots throughout your business premises, implementing Quality of Service (QoS) policies across your network and monitoring your devices for resource issues. To find out more about preparing your local network for 3CX, download our Preparation and Troubleshooting guide.

The most suitable options for good quality calls for a business mainly interested in the flexibility of working that can tolerate an accepted level of quality risk are:

• 3CX Web Client or 3CX iOS and Android mobile apps.
• G.729 voice codec priority.
• Strong wireless network connection.
• Sennheiser Bluetooth headset.
• Standard FTTC business internet connection.

Despite the great technological advancements of our years, a 4G connection, to this day, cannot be characterised as reliable and therefore it is very difficult to control its quality. This obstacle presents itself mainly when the user is indoors, so we did not include it in our suggestions above.

A 4G connection can be great, but unfortunately not at all times, so if you have no fear of losing connection from time to time, this is a great solution for you. It all depends on your attitude towards risk.

If your end-users use a 4G connection with their 3CX iOS or Android mobile app, they need to be aware that it is at their own risk, and that you won’t be able to troubelshoot any call quality issues they experience.

This option is best suited for ‘work from anywhere’ culture companies that aim to reduce their upfront hardware costs by leveraging BYOD, the 3CX mobile apps, web and desktop clients.

Better quality calls within a more controlled environment

If your business needs a more consistent call quality experience whilst remaining flexible and keeping hardware costs down, this option is the best middle ground:

• 3CX Desktop Client for Windows or 3CX Web Client.
• G.711 voice codec priority.
• Local network Quality of Service (QoS) is configured to prioritise 3CX voice traffic and has been tested end-to-end across your network.
• Resource optimised end user devices.
• Wired network connection or professionally installed and optimised WiFi network that’s monitored and supported
• Sennheiser USB headsets.
• 1:1 fibre internet connection or leased line with a service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees low latency, jitter and packet loss.

Best call quality no matter what happens

If the best call quality experience is your number one priority, then your telecoms strategy should consist of the following:

• Yealink High-Definition Voice IP handsets
• G.711 or G.722 voice codec priority
• Dedicated switches or a voice VLAN that prioritises all 3CX voice traffic across your local network and internet connection
• 1:1 fibre internet connection or leased line with a service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees low latency, jitter and packet loss. Or a dedicated private connection directly into your 3CX hosting providers data centre.
• A private interconnect from your 3CX hosting provider to your SIP trunk providers network, so your calls don’t traverse the general internet.

This could work best for companies with a consultative sales approach that requires all of your sales consultants to sound as if they are ‘in the room’ with each and every sales prospect they talk to. And a next to zero risk (99.99%) of any call quality issues ever being experienced.

Summary

This blog post is a part of the Proven Process that we take all of our customers through when designing and implementing their hosted 3CX system. This process ensures all of our customers have a call quality experience that aligns with their expectations from the outset.

We’ve had many customers come to us from other providers over the years, frustrated with ongoing call quality issues that often relate to misaligned expectations, or local infrastructure issues that haven’t been addressed to ensure their expectations can be met.

If, after reading this blog post, you would like to know more about our hosted 3CX services or are still unsure of what fits the unique needs of your business, we are always happy to help you with any queries.