What is the best phone system for a new or small business? That is a question I hear each time a client or potential new client opens an office or a store. In the old days you called the phone company and they added a phone. If you had a big office they added a small switchboard and wires as big around as a quarter with huge buttons that lit up. They called it a “Private Branch Exchange” or PBX.
Before I go too much further, I need to be clear, we don’t sell, service or receive commission from any of these companies. When I founded TeleData in the early 1990’s we did all of it. This is unbiased guidance to help you make a better choice.
Today there are more choices than Mr. Bell ever imagined for talking to people across town or around the globe. Yes the phone companies are still in business, but they all either bought or were bought by a cable company, internet company or satellite TV company. No one wants “just a phone” anymore.
The biggest trend for home users is not to get a phone line and just use a mobile phone. As the number of homeowners decreases and renters increase this makes more sense anyway. My home line is only for my fax and alarm. Yes people still want a fax.
For businesses, there are phone lines, VoIP numbers, Hosted PBX, Cloud PBX, and Cloud Based Voice Services. You can provide your own access to the internet or you can rent a connection from your provider. One of the internet provider/cable company/telephone company types in Northern California now offers any or all of the above services in one package.
But what are all of these hosted phone systems?
Unless you get a POTS phone or “Plain old telephone service” type phone you are getting either a VoIP or a Virtual System.
VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol. It means that your voice is broken down to little pieces and compressed and then sent across the wires the same way email, websites and on demand movies are sent down the wire.
Cell phones use similar technology, the idea is to get more calls on each radio channel or pair of wires.
Don’t Miss Out On Mobile Customers
If you choose not to get a POTS line installed in your home or office, for your business, you still have some choices to make.
First, who will own your “switch”. That is the part that takes voicemail, transfers calls, maybe has an auto attendant etc. If you go with POTS lines, these are sometimes called “Key Systems”. A small box about the size of a PC can manage more than 20 lines and a hundred extensions. If you do this, you “own” it because it is in your office.
If you go with VoIP you still have a choice. You can buy the mini PBX and have it in your office or rent the services from a third party. The technology is so evolved that you can even build your own PC based VoIP PBX for a fraction of the cost of a brand name system. My advice is not to do it, the warranty and factory backing are critical when your business is losing calls. Never mind the value of your time. Anyone that still makes phones like Avaya, Cisco and Mitel make these boxes.
The second choice is to go with a virtual system. There are dozens of them like Vonage, 8×8, Fonality, and Ring Central. With a Virtual VoIP system, you simply buy the phones and plug then into a outlet wired to your router just like a computer, or connect wirelessly to your WiFi Router. The phone checks in with the company you chose and in a few minutes it starts working. Need a new line, add a new phone.
While these cost a lot less up front, over time they can be very expensive compared to an owned solution. As the lifecycle of the PBX or Key Systems continues to shrink, the long term costs are getting closer.
The part they don’t tell about these systems is the WiFi versions slow down your other network traffic, and a couple of people streaming Netflix might kill your calls unless you have a high dollar router with a priority set to voice traffic. If you prioritize voice and it doesn’t see your video conference call as a high priority, you could have some video issues. It’s a balancing act.
If you are missing a human touch, there are still some pretty good answering services and with any hosted system it is a simple setting to transfer the calls after hours.
Finally there are completely virtual systems. This is what we have here at our offices. We have a mix of Google Voice and Line2 Services. We don’t have any desktop phones at all. Since we are all mac, we have an app on our iPhone and use FaceTime to connect to our iPhones. Our macs become giant speaker phones that are pretty good quality.
Line2 does not yet support full integration to CRM systems like some of the more expensive solutions.
I added an AT2020+ microphone with a sound shield, and two very high quality studio speakers. My desktop speaker phone is the best phone I have ever had. If you call my Google Voice Number, you will be screened and sent to my cell phone if I accept the call. If you call the office line, Line2 (pro version) has a full auto attendant so you can get to the right person. It then forwards the call to one or more cell phones until someone answers.
The next step will be a service like WAVE. WAVE is a wireline services provider, what most would call a cable company, that offers telephone, tv and internet. Pretty much the same as anyone else. The difference is they offer hosted PBX services for their business clients. This make good sense, but in the end it all comes down to cost.
Business internet is significantly higher than residential internet and the reason is simple. Businesses move a lot more data, even with on demand video like Netflix and Hulu at home, Businesses are constantly moving data, and that increases the cost to the company providing the connection.
When you are looking at adding any kind of Virtual or VoIP phone system, you will have three main costs. First is the internet access cost. If you add VoIP you need to add bandwidth or speed so your costs go up.
Second is the telephone line access itself. on their own a number can be as low as free with google voice, or $6 a month with most other services. You still need a phone to get to it or an app. For a small business the going rate is about $39-$49 per month per line and that doesn’t always include the phone.
When we first transferred to VoIP 15 years ago, we chose Vonage and the service was marginal at best. Calls dropped, and the quality was horrible. Mostly it was due to the cheap routers they provided. Today they are among the highest ranked.
The biggest advantage of hosted or virtual systems is the integration with CRM systems like Salesforce, Zendesk or Desk.com
Here is some sample pricing as of 12/4/2105 Hopefully with competition this will get better.
Vonage – $39.99/month per line not including the phone.
RingCentral – $24.99 – $44.99/month/line depending on features.
8×8 – No Online Price List Quote Only.
Fonality – $24.99/line/month and up
Line2 Pro – $12.45/line/month
Like anything, if you have a plan up front and know how you are going to use the technology, you will be able to save a lot of time and money in the long run.
If you aren’t sure what’s best for you, give us a call and we can help you create a solution that works for you.
