For prospecting, the answer is VoIP, and more precisely a dialer built on VoIP rather than a phone system. Classic telephony (the copper PSTN, "RTC" in France) is being switched off, cannot integrate with a CRM, and cannot do the one thing that changes outbound results: dial several numbers at once. The real question is not VoIP versus landline; it is which VoIP setup, and what to check about European number quality before you sign.

VoIP vs classic telephony: the short version

Classic telephony carries voice over a dedicated copper line through a PBX in your office. It is reliable, it is expensive per seat, and it is a dead end: in France, Orange began shutting down the copper network in 2023, area by area, with full closure planned by 2030. New analogue lines have not been sold since 2018.

VoIP carries voice as data over your internet connection. A seat is a login, not a cable. Numbers can be added, moved or ported in minutes. And because the call is software, everything around it can be software too: recording, logging, routing, and parallel dialing.

For a 20-person company's reception desk, the difference is cost. For a prospecting team, the difference is whether a rep has 5 conversations a day or 20.

Why prospecting is a different problem from telephony

A phone system is designed for inbound and for calls that connect. Prospecting is the opposite: most dials do not connect. Our benchmark of 1,000,000 B2B cold calls in France measures the average connect rate at 11.3%. A rep dialing one number at a time, on any technology, spends roughly 9 out of 10 attempts listening to ringing and voicemail.

That is why "VoIP" alone does not fix outbound. A VoIP softphone used like a desk phone gives you the same 5 or 6 conversations a day as the desk phone. What fixes outbound is a dialer: software on top of VoIP that dials from a list, detects voicemails, logs outcomes, and in parallel mode calls several numbers at once and bridges the rep to the first human. Parallel dialing gives reps 5x more conversations in our data.

The comparison that matters for a prospecting team

Cost per seat

Classic telephony has a hardware cost (PBX, handsets, cabling) and a line cost. VoIP has a subscription and consumption. In our experience, VoIP is cheaper per seat for any team above 2 reps, and the gap widens with headcount because adding a seat costs nothing but the licence.

CRM integration

Classic telephony: none, or a CTI connector that costs more than the phones. VoIP dialer: click-to-call, automatic logging of outcome and recording, next step written to the CRM. At 100 dials a day, manual logging costs a rep up to an hour; this is the second-largest time saving after parallel dialing.

Mobility and remote work

A VoIP number follows the login: office, home, laptop in a train. Classic telephony follows the wall socket. For distributed teams this alone decides the question.

Call quality

This is where classic telephony still wins on paper, and where VoIP buyers get burned. Audio quality on VoIP depends on your connection and on the carrier routes your provider uses. The cheapest VoIP providers route European calls through low-cost carriers and the result is latency, clipped audio, and numbers flagged as spam. Test with your own numbers, to your own market, before you buy.

Scalability

Adding 5 reps on classic telephony is a procurement project. On VoIP it is 5 licences and 5 numbers, provisioned the same day.

When classic telephony is still fine

Keep the desk phones if you have one or two people who call a handful of existing customers a day, no CRM, and no plan to grow the team. The moment someone is paid to prospect, the arithmetic changes: a rep who spends 80% of their calling hour waiting on a single line is the most expensive line item in the office.

What to check about European numbers before choosing VoIP

This is the part most VoIP comparisons skip, and the part that decides your connect rate in France and Europe.

• Caller ID authentication. French operators authenticate caller numbers since 2024; a spoofed or unauthenticated number is blocked or flagged. Your provider must own and authenticate the numbers it gives you.
• Number type. In France, prospecting calls cannot display 06/07 mobile numbers as caller ID. You need geographic (01-05) or polyvalent numbers verified for the purpose.
• Number reputation. A number that has been dialed 500 times a day for a year is a spam number. Ask how the provider rotates and monitors reputation.
• Recording consent. Call recording rules differ between France, Germany and the UK. The dialer should let you set recording per country.
• Data residency. Recordings and transcripts of European prospects should stay in the EU.

How to migrate from classic telephony to a VoIP dialer

1. Check the connection. Fibre, a wired link for reps, and a 4G/5G fallback. VoIP on a shared office Wi-Fi is where quality complaints come from.
2. Port the numbers you care about (your main line, numbers printed on contracts). Prospecting numbers should be new and dedicated.
3. Connect the CRM before the first call. If logging is manual on day one, it stays manual.
4. Pilot with 2 reps for 2 weeks, measuring conversations per day before and after. In our experience this is the only number that convinces the finance team.
5. Train on the dialer, not on the phone. The phone is trivial. Parallel mode changes how a rep works: no time to read the CRM between calls, so prep must happen before the session.

How Sonik approaches VoIP for prospecting

Sonik is a VoIP-based parallel dialer, not a phone system. We provision and authenticate European numbers, detect voicemails, log every outcome to the CRM, and run AI call prep and coaching around each conversation. We were built in France for European teams, so number type, caller ID authentication and per-country recording rules are handled by default rather than as a configuration project.

We do not replace your company's phone system for inbound and support. We sit next to it, for the one job it was never designed for.

Conclusion

Choose VoIP, and within VoIP choose a dialer. The copper network is closing, the CRM integration is not optional, and parallel dialing is the only lever that multiplies conversations rather than shaving minutes. This week, ask your current provider two questions: are our outbound numbers authenticated, and can we see our connect rate by number. If either answer is no, you have your migration case.