Business Phone Service. Unlike old business phone systems that ran on traditional landlines, today's systems have moved to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. VoIP systems are Internet-based and run on the same connections companies use to get online.
Phone service are available as on-premises and cloud-hosted solutions. With on-premises systems, your IT staff needs to install and maintain the private branch exchange (PBX) equipment. Conversely, cloud-hosted solutions require very little IT resources since all of the PBX equipment is housed and maintained by the phone system provider. With the cloud-hosted option, IT teams focus more of their attention on managing the system's features, rather than the infrastructure.
Today's systems are compatible with mobile phones and tablets and integrate with popular business solutions such as Outlook and Salesforce. Pricing is based on the number of users and usually don't require long-term contracts. Most systems are compatible with newer IP phones, however businesses that prefer to use analog phones they already have in place can purchase an adaptor to connect them to the online phone system.
How We Evaluated Business VoIP Services
Tom's IT Pro is owned by a larger media company called Purch, which is home to several different properties, including Business.com and Business News Daily. As a company we often share data and research, which is true of business phone systems and services. While each site writes in its own style, we each have our own audiences, by which the data must be interpreted. Between Tom's IT Pro's sister sites, we have access to data on 60 well-known VoIP services.
Our sister sites evaluated, among other things, administrative features, unified communication features, service plan options, integration features, mobile tools and ease-of-use. We dug through the shared research and conducted our own into IT-specific areas, such as hosting platforms, number of phones supported, training, compatibility, uptime and security. Using all of this information, we narrowed the choice to four services suitable for small-to-medium businesses.
Buying Considerations
Few large companies these days cling to the traditional landline. In fact, the market for VoIP is expected to grow nearly 10 percent over the next four years, which roughly matches the decline of the landline, according to Statista. VoIP services coupled with Unified Communications (UCassS) are affordable and provide other helpful business services, such as online fax, conferencing and instant messaging. Meanwhile, traditional phone systems are costly to maintain and do not include additional business services that your company may need.
IT considerations before purchase:
On-premises, cloud, or hybrid hosting options
Cost of lease versus purchase versus adding analog adaptors to already owned phones
Bandwidth requirements per phone and other internet needs
Hosting Options
A huge factor when choosing a phone system for your business is deciding how you want the PBX equipment, which is what's needed to run the system, hosted. Some phone system providers offer on-premises or cloud based systems, while others offer both options.
With the on-premises systems the PBX equipment is installed inside your business. Your IT team is responsible for securing it, keeping it up and running and upgrading it when necessary. Hosting on-premises gives businesses the ability to keep a few traditional landlines working alongside SIP-trunked VoIP lines.
With the cloud-hosted solution, the phone system provider houses and maintains all of the PBX equipment. These systems require far fewer IT resources. There is no hardware, except for the phones, to maintain and all of the upgrades are taken care of by the phone system providers. Businesses using these systems are best served by installing backup equipment that can reroute calls during power or internet outages. With these systems, new users and features can be added via an online portal. Cloud-based options also easily support multiple locations.
Nearly all of the providers we examined had an uptime of at least 99.990 percent. That means their systems are down for just a handful of minutes each year.
Some phone system providers also offer a hybrid hosting option. The hybrid option can be used as an intermediary step toward evolving to a virtual PBX. Hybrid systems combine traditional on-premises PBX equipment businesses already had with VoIP service.
Desktop Phones
Most business phone services are compatible with a variety of IP phones and offer adapters so analog phones can connect to their systems. So it's likely that you can continue using the phones your company already owns.
IP phones come in a variety of styles. There are traditional corded options, as well as cordless phones and conference room phones. The phones can range anywhere from $50 to $1,000 each. In addition to buying the phones outright, some phone system providers offer the option to rent phones for a monthly fee.
The per-phone analog adaptor can cost as much as $60, and a traditional fax-machine adaptor can cost between $100 and $150.
The benefit of buying IP phones from your phone system provider is that they come completely configured and are immediately ready to be used once they are plugged in. If you buy phones from an outside source, your IT team will need to configure the phones on their own to work with the system you are using.
If you can afford it, it makes sense to upgrade your phones. If you cannot afford new phones, carefully consider how much the workaround will cost the company in the long term.
Bandwidth
Consult your business's internet service about obtaining the bandwidth required to support a new phone service. The phones of most of the services we considered required just short of 100 Kbps per phone call for the best quality. You'll also want to estimate internet needs for other equipment, such as computers, servers and Wi-Fi-connected devices.
You should expect any up-to-date business phone service to provide the following features:
Remote management, Hosted PBX services (virtual private branch exchange hosted online and managed by the service), Call reports, Online faxing, Auto-receptionist, Phone menus, Unlimited calling (often free within the U.S. and Canada, with minute allotments for international), Single sign-on compatibility, Voicemail, Voicemail-to-email, On hold music, Mobile phone compatibility, Short or no-contract subscriptions, Conference calling, Instant messaging, Paging, "Presence" indicators (shows users other person's phone status such as active or away), Video conferencing (often HD), Phone number porting, Business SMS