Considering just how connected modern organizations have to be, communications has quickly become one of the most expensive aspects of running a business. Even the smallest companies will soon find that they have to spend a healthy percentage of their proceeds on various methods of communication. Technologists have stepped up to the plate by taking legacy platforms and restructuring them to do more than ever before.
An average office staffer now spends around 20 hours every week using digital communication tools, and it’s likely that they spend even more time using traditional telephony products. As a result, picking the right platform and stretching it to its max is vital for nearly any sized business.
Transforming Plain Old Telephone Service
Information technology departments have sort of written off POTS lines in most businesses, with the exception of those that hand out cellular phone handsets to every employee who works with them. Phone companies have responded by rolling out a host of new features that leverage existing infrastructure in ways that the network never had in the past. Paramount among these are unstructured supplementary service data codes, which can turn the pound and star keys on a smartphone into a sophisticated banking system perfect for international users who need to keep track of their finances without standard Internet access.
Sending a few standard key tones should be more than enough to check a balance or transfer funds between two accounts registered with a bank that employs this technology. A number of other telephony-related products have quickly made a name for themselves as well. For instance, Voice over Internet Protocol lines that utilize Internet trunks to route long distance calls without touching the publicly switched telephone network are a cost-effective way to accept calls and talk to clients. Firms that sell products to end-users have been among the most enthusiastic adopters of VoIP technology, since they’re able to tie it into the assistance and sales hotlines needed to support their brands.
With all of this focus on PSTN-based solutions, it shouldn’t be any surprise that financial experts are turning to traditional radio as a way of communicating with their brokers.
High Frequency Trading Information
Artificial intelligence investment tools that use machine learning to process large amounts of financial data have threatened to completely disrupt existing securities markets. The problem with these tools, however, is that they tend to crunch numbers much faster than any communications network could ever pass data. That often translates into bottlenecks where market makers can’t actually cite prices fast enough to make the use of such tools worthwhile.
Engineers are looking into the possibility of utilizing shortwave radioteletype stations to transmit financial data from one area to another in minuscule fractions of a second. The proposed speeds would be considerably faster than even fiber optic cables could provide. Retail investors and small business owners who wouldn’t otherwise be able to compete with representatives from major organizations may very well be the biggest benefactors of this kind of technology.
Chances are good that operators of these fixed stations would sell access to them based around reasonably-priced plans. Individual shareholders may want to pool with other investors in order to make the best use of these resources. World band radio transmissions are certainly a very old technology, but they also provide a degree of anonymity not found on almost any other communications platform. In the near future, this feature may endear it to those who run online cryptocurrency mixers and want to avoid sharing any additional information beyond what’s absolutely necessary.
Selecting the Most Flexible Communications Platform
A truly dizzying selection of different platforms are available to financial technology company representatives. Subsidiary communications authority carriers use frequency modulation signals to transmit quotes and prices over the airwaves. Passive microwave electronics make use of huge concrete reflectors to share information over incredible distances. All of these choices can make it hard for businesses to make a decision on which ones to use.
Carefully consider the cost-to-benefit ratio of any re-imagined technology before investing in it and decide whether or not now is the right time to switch over to a new platform. Firms that are already going through some sort of reorganization might be the best candidates for a new way of communicating with clients, but there’s no reason why any forward-thinking company can’t add one more tool to its financial arsenal. Just because someone adopts an additional solution doesn’t mean that they have to give up everything they used before.
