8 Reasons to switch to a Hosted/VoIP Telephone System

Benefits of replacing your old PBX with an Hosted Telephone System

What is a Hosted/VoIP Telephone System?

A Hosted Telephone system is a complete telephony system that routes telephone
calls over a companies data network, which are controlled centrally via a bank of
remote servers running over the internet, that acts as the switchboard. This creates a
distributed architecture that allows users to add handsets in multiple locations using 1
switchboard.

The technology includes advanced communication features but also provides a
significant dose of worry-free scalability and robustness that all enterprises seek. The
hosted system uses the very latest in VoIP technology to route incoming and outgoing
calls, and is able to remotely stack and queue calls off site and pass them through to
the available handsets, thus saving money on expensive additional phone lines.
Additionally, due to the use of bandwidth to carry calls rather than traditional
telephone lines, businesses can run an average of up to 8 calls through 1 connection.
Enterprises don't need to disrupt their current external communication infrastructure
and operations. With a Hosted System deployed, an enterprise can even keep its
regular telephone numbers by moving these onto our platform to host. This way, the
hosted system switches local calls over the data network inside the enterprise and
routes calls in and out via the internet connection.

How it works

A Hosted Telephone System consists of one or more SIP phones, and a Hosted
Telephone System to connect to your incoming and outgoing calls. Your phones,
being either soft phones or hardware-based phones, register with the hosted system,
and when calls come into the system it distributes them as required. Similarly, when
calls are made, multiple users can simultaneously pick up the phone and make a call,
the only limitation being the available bandwidth through the broadband connection.

Key Benefits

1-Significant cost savings on calls and lines

Using our system, you are benefiting from call rates that are cheaper than traditional
suppliers, and our UK mobile phone rate is actually 2.5p per minute cheaper than
Skype! The monthly savings can be significant, especially when you also consider
the savings on having less telephone lines to carry your calls. If you have branch
offices, you can easily connect phone systems between branches and make free phone
calls.

2-Reliability and Failover

In order to plan for a high degree of reliability when implementing a new system, we
usually recommend the use of 2 telephone lines with 2 broadband connections, and a
dual wan router – see the Draytek Vigor 2820 as an example. This router will
distribute 2 incoming broadband connections, giving you twice the bandwidth (up to
16 calls using our suggested broadband providers) and also the ability to
automatically failover if one line ever fails. This gives the business a high degree of
stability, and if more lines are needed then simply add more routers.

3-Easy Installation and no messy phone wiring!

Our system allows you to connect hardware phones directly to a standard computer
network port (which it can share with the adjacent computer). Software phones can be
installed directly onto the PC and you simply use a standard headset with microphone.
You can now eliminate the phone wiring and make adding or moving of extensions
much easier. In new offices you can completely eliminate the extra ports to be used by
your traditional PBX phone system.

4-Scalability

Proprietary systems are easy to outgrow: Adding more phone lines or extensions often
requires expensive hardware modules. In some cases you need an entirely new phone
system. This is not so with our Hosted System which can easily handle a large
number of phone lines and extensions, which means that you just add more phones to
your network to expand as and when you need them!

5-Better customer service & productivity

With a hosted system you can deliver better customer service and better productivity:
This is because your system is now expandable and feature rich, offering incoming
callers more services and ways of reaching you, even in your absence through
advanced services such as voicemail to email which can send your voicemail
immediately to your blackberry or email capable mobile phone. On multiple site
installations, users will now be able to call each other directly without the need to call
through a receptionist, and leave each other voicemails.

6-Twice the phone system features for half the price!

Since our system is essentially software-based, it is easier for us to add and improve
feature sets. Most VOIP phone systems come with a rich feature set, including auto
attendant, voice mail, ring groups, advanced reporting and more. These options are
often very expensive in proprietary systems.

7-Allow hot desking, roaming and disaster recovery

Hot desking is the process of being able to easily move offices/desks based on the
task at hand, has become very popular. Unfortunately traditional PBXs require
extensions to be re-patched to the new location. With a hosted system the user simply
takes his phone to his new desk No patching required!

Users can roam too if an employee has to work from home, he/she can simply fire up
their SIP software phone and are able to answer calls to their extension, just as they
would in the office. Calls can be diverted anywhere in the world because of the
distributed architecture of the hosted system.

If your business premises were one day hit by disaster that rendered the premises
unusable (fire etc) then our system has been designed to be immediately movable,
allowing your to set up handsets or softphones in a temporary location, and we can
then immediately re-route your calls as necessary, even to mobile phones as a
temporary measure, in order to ensure that your customers are always dealt with
effectively.

8-Better phone usability: SIP phones are easier to use

Employees often struggle using advanced phone features: Setting up a conference,
transferring a call On an old PBX it all requires instruction.
Not so with our hosted system. Most SIP phones are easily used to set up conference
calls, or divert and transfer calls. This is because the telephones that we recommend
are all tested by our team and all work along the lines of a traditional mobile phone,
so the user has a high degree of familiarity. Proprietary systems often require
expensive system phones to get an idea what is going on on your phone system. Even
then, status information is cryptic at best.

Name:

 

Telephone:

 

E-Mail:

 

Enquiry: