Guide To Selecting a Hosted Business VoIP Solution
There is a variety of business VoIP solutions that offers high quality, feature-rich phone service with easy administration at a significant lower cost than traditional phone service. This guide mainly focuses on the hosted VoIP business solution. For the benefits of a Hosted PBX solution please click here - Hosted Business VoIP Solution Benefits. Additional Benefits of VoIP for your business... The primary reason many small businesses are switching to a VoIP system is cost. Savings vary from firm to firm, but the industry reports an average savings of 30% to 40%. A recent survey showed the primary reason for businesses switching to VoIP is because of the savings. Here is a ROI analysis for a two office 20 employee business that reflects a 34% savings over a five year period. It is an interactive spreadsheet so you can insert your company information to get a general idea of the cost of a hosted business VoIP solutions. Click here to review. Given the cost of commercial phone service these days, 30% to 40% savings is not an insignificant amount. It's a good chunk of change that can be reinvested in other areas of your business. One best benefit of a business VoIP system is that calls placed over a private network are free. This is a vitally important consideration if your business has more than one office. With a private network connection between offices, it will cost you nothing to stay in touch on a near-constant basis. Another benefit of VoIP is its extreme portability. Calls can be forwarded to employees anywhere the employee has a computer access. Advanced features allow calls to also be forwarded to any landline or cell phone. Therefore a VoIP system could keep your employees connected wherever they are - at home, the office or on the road. With a VoIP solution businesses can use their current phone system and handsets so there is no need to purchase new phones or upgrade their PBX.
For discussion purposes I have listed the options for a hosted business VoIP solution into four categories...
Option 1 - Home office phone system. I believe the most important factor for having a good quality VoIP phone system in a home office (or really anywhere) is not the phone system but is the quality of the internet (broadband) connection. Once you have a good quality broadband connection you can pretty much have the success with many VoIP service providers. For the hosted VoIP phone system that I use in my home office click on this link --> Home office VoIP phone system. For a list of reviews for some of the better VoIP providers and service plans for a small business or home office
click here - Best VoIP Providers & Service Plans.
Option 2 - Is mainly for small businesses with about five to 15 employees. VoIP service from Vonage or 8x8 fit very well. They are low cost, simple to use, and can be used over your DSL or cable broadband with reasonable quality and reliability. The VoIP providers give you the same analog telephone adapter (ATA) you would get for a residential plan. The ATA is responsible for converting the analog signals from a regular telephone into a format acceptable for transmission over the internet. The ATA normally supports up to two telephone lines. As of the fall of 2008 Packet8 no longer uses a analog telephone adapter. They now require you to purchase a digital phone ranging in price from $130 to $350. I feel a digital phone is the best option because of the many features they offer and in my opinion better sound quality. Most of these plans range from $40 to $50 per month per phone (plus a one time setup/activation fee). The normal configuration of this type of set-up is shown in the diagram below
If you have less than twenty five employees you may want to learn more about the 8x8 Virtual Office service. The cost of a 8x8 business VoIP service for twenty five employees are about $1,000 per month. Your company receives all the benefits of voice over IP services without the costs of buying and maintaining your own PBX switch. Any of the VoIP PBX providers reviewed here would be an excellent choice for this size of business. Option 3 - is for businesses with 15 to 150 employees and up whom does not have an in house PBX system. Companies of this size have more sophisticated needs (conference calling, auto attendants, call forwarding, etc.) coupled with tight budgets and perhaps little or no in-house IT expertise. This type of option is where a company would have a T1/T3 connected to a router supplied by the business VoIP provider. This router is connected to a switch which is connected to your Local Area Network (LAN). Computers and IP telephones (digital phones) are then connected to the switch. Analog phones can also be used with an ATA which is connected to the switch. Therefore you have the option to use your current analog phones, IP phones or a combination of the two. Using your analog phone can save you money versus purchasing IT phones for $140 to $700 per set. But you do lose some of the VoIP features and functionality when you do not upgrade to a VoIP phone. You can also use softphones which is software you load on your computer that you use to place calls from your PC along with a headset and microphone. Adding additional phone (seats), features and other administration tasks are made easy through a customer portal provided by the service provider. Employees (users) also have a web portal (aka control panel) for managing their settings and retrieving their messages. The below diagram shows this type of hosted business phone service.
Option 4 - is like option 3 with the exception that the business has an on site aging PBX. In this scenario a hosted business VoIP service can be added to supplement the PBX. This allows you to reduce if not eliminate your regular phone lines or PRI going to the Bell central office which allows for a significant cost savings. In this set up the PBX would be connected to a switch provided by the business VoIP provider. This switch converts the output from the PBX into IP packets and then passes them to a router that is connected to the T1/T3.
My recommendation is that under options two, and especially three and four make sure you select a business class VoIP provider. A business VoIP provider focuses on providing VoIP solutions to businesses and understands the importance of delivering high quality and reliable service which is just as important to businesses as cost. Select a business VoIP provider that uses a carrier-grade softswitch platform, and delivers over a Tier 1 IP backbone. Following are two business VoIP service providers that I believe provide a very good VoIP business phone system for any size business. I believe in them so much that I have partnered with them to sell their system.
To view some of the featured cities where Hosted Voice Solutions offers VoIP business phone service click here. 
8x8 unique Hosted PBX solution allows you to pay-as-you-grow which means you save money without sacrificing features. 8x8 manages the complete service so you can focus on your business rather than your phones.
8x8 Virtual Office hosted PBX service offers features, benefits and TCO advantages that will transform the way your company does business.
Click here to discover more about 8x8 Virtual Office
A hosted business VoIP service that combines voice, data, PBX, long distance, and conferencing into one cost-effective communications solution. Click here - to discover more about Speakeasy's business VoIP solution
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