WiFi and VoIP Integration: Best Practices for Businesses

Running a modern business means setting up an appropriate infrastructure. In the past, an office needed cubicles. Today, it needs decent internet coverage. Now, while great cable management is an amazing thing, why bother when you have Wi-Fi? 

With strong enough signal and range extenders, you can easily cover the entirety of the office floor. Most of your employees already use laptops and smartphones in an open office, so why wouldn’t they work an hour or two from the balcony or the roof?

At the same time, you want to get the most out of your internet, so why not cancel your phone line and choose a more digital option? Why not pick up VoIP instead? 

So, here are a few tips on how to utilize these two technologies and integrate them to create an end-to-end system for your workplace. 

1. Get Sufficient Bandwidth

First things first, when you switch from Ethernet to Wi-Fi, you generally experience a loss in bandwidth due to factors like signal interference, physical obstructions, and the inherent differences in how data is transmitted over wireless networks. 

Most commonly, Wi-Fi can offer between 50% and 80% of the bandwidth that Ethernet provides under optimal conditions. The exact amount of bandwidth loss depends on several factors, including the Wi-Fi standard (e.g., Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6), the quality of the router, and the environment in which the Wi-Fi operates.

For instance, if you have a 1 Gbps Ethernet connection, your Wi-Fi connection might deliver between 500 Mbps and 800 Mbps in a real-world scenario.

2. Bandwidth Requirements for a Single VoIP Conversation

Next, we need to consider the Bandwidth requirements for a single VoIP conversation in order to be able to scale it up. This is how we figure out how much we need for your team, which is vital when choosing your VoIP business system. 

So, what do the numbers say?

Well…

A single VoIP conversation typically requires between 64 kbps and 128 kbps of bandwidth per call, including both the upstream and downstream data. The exact amount depends on the codec used, with higher-quality codecs like G.711 requiring more bandwidth and lower-quality codecs like G.729 requiring less.

In either of these two cases, the amount of connection that is necessary is really not that high. In other words, you don’t need super-fast internet to use VoIP services, compared to what you would need for live streaming or even video calls. However, there are a few things you do need to take into consideration. We’re talking about the number of users (all of which will potentially use VoIP at the same time) and the distance from the router. We’ll talk about these two things in the next two sections.

3. Requirements for an Average Office

To estimate the bandwidth needed for an entire office, let’s assume an average office size of about 50 employees, where 30 of them might be on a VoIP call at the same time. Ideally, you could even count the 50 users, but this wouldn’t be necessary.

So, the equation for the VoIP Bandwidth for 30 Concurrent Calls goes something like this:

• If using a higher-quality codec like G.711, you would need approximately 128 kbps per call. This is 128 kbps times 30, which is 3,840 kbps or 3.84 Mbps.

This means that, for just the VoIP traffic, you would need at least 3.84 Mbps of dedicated bandwidth, which is so little. For instance, a video call in 1080p (which is not even that high in 2024) would take roughly 3 Mbps. 

In other words, a single user on a video call would use the same amount of the internet as ⅗ of your office on VoIP at the same time.

Livestreaming, on the other hand, will take up to 6 Mbps, which would be significantly more than if your entire office was on VoIP at the same time (all 50 people simultaneously conversing). 

However, you should also consider other network uses, such as web browsing, email, and other data traffic, which will increase the total bandwidth requirement. 

It is not that hard to imagine a customer support representative browsing the Internet while talking to a customer and searching for materials and resources. 

Generally speaking, a typical small-to-medium-sized business might have an internet connection of around 100 Mbps to ensure smooth operations for all applications, including VoIP. 

Given that fiber internet offers speeds up to 100 Gbps, it’s clear that the only real bottleneck here is the nature of WiFi. 

4. Distance from the Router and its Impact on VoIP

The distance between your device and the Wi-Fi router plays a crucial role in maintaining a stable and high-quality VoIP connection. As you move further away from the router, the signal strength diminishes, leading to potential issues like packet loss, jitter, and latency, which can severely degrade VoIP call quality. For example:

• Optimal Range: Call quality will be minimally affected within 10-20 feet of the router.

• Moderate Range: Between 20-50 feet, you might start noticing some degradation, especially in environments with walls or other obstructions.

• Extended Range: Beyond 50 feet, especially without a clear line of sight, call quality might suffer significantly unless a high-performance router is used.

The best way to improve this issue is to use Wi-Fi range extenders. 

Range extenders can help mitigate distance issues by amplifying the Wi-Fi signal and extending its coverage area. 

When in the right place, range extenders can ensure that areas far from the router still receive a strong signal, which is crucial for maintaining VoIP call quality in larger offices or spaces with many physical obstructions. 

However, it’s important to note that range extenders typically halve the available bandwidth because they must communicate with the router and the device. 

Wrap Up

Ultimately, WiFi and VoIP integration go well hand in hand, mainly because VoIP doesn’t really need that much bandwidth. So, even when you lose a bit of internet due to the distance from the router, and the extender halves it, you still have more than enough. Just keep in mind that VoIP is not the only thing that will use your office internet. Take other functions into the equation, as well.