RingCentral is Restored, But We're Left Wondering: Can we Really Depend on Voice over IP?

Earlier today, RingCentral (a virtual phone service with plans for small businesses)

, creating huge problems for businesses that rely on the company's services. Benzinga is one such company. We use RingCentral as our main office line. After restoring the service, the company agreed to provide us with a one-month credit. But considering what an important day this was for Benzinga, which just received a

from Groupon co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky, that single credit is barely adequate. Unfortunately, additional credits are not the solution. The key problem with RingCentral is that it relies on a technology that is still in its infancy: Voice over IP. Unlike the dated analog phone system, VoIP uses the Internet as its main point of transmission. Thus, if (when) your Internet Service Provider has an issue and goes down, your phone service will be knocked out in the process. The same is true if your power goes out (Power over Ethernet might take care of that issue, but most VoIP users plug their phones into a power outlet). This makes VoIP much more volatile than a traditional phone line, which is connected to your ISP – assuming you're not still on dial-up, of course. You're not still on dial-up…right!? Today, however, Benzinga's Internet connection was fine. When RingCentral went down, it wasn't just a problem for us – it was a problem for all of its 200,000 customers. This begs the question: can we really trust VoIP? It may be more economical, and it may be what all the “cool kids” are doing. But when taking the aforementioned issues into consideration (not to mention the

), VoIP is far from the next generation of telecommunications.