Not every business needs the exact same phone system.
There are many factors, but from a simple core need viewpoint, there are businesses that do not have fixed offices and need a cloud based solution. They may have remote workers at many locations and are looking for a communication solution that is fully mobile, works anywhere and offers a flexible end-user managed web controlled interface.
There are other businesses that just want their voicemail on the wall next to the demarcation point in their telco/server room. It’s a more traditional deployment but perhaps they want the added benefits of allowing remote phones and mobile users to be able to connect to the phone system when they are not at HQ.
In either case, there are similar platform solutions just designed differently. You can view some information on our service here on our site.
Hosted Phone or Virtual Phone Systems
A hosted phone or analog telephone adapter is usually tied into a central multi-tenant system. These central systems efficiently allow many businesses to share some common architecture.
Some Pros:
- less capital deployment
- simplicity and quick deployment time
- allows remote users anywhere to all share the same system
Some Cons:
- not as flexible as a dedicated system
- limitations in long term storage capacity
- doesn’t usually work that well for call center type activity
- usually needs very straight forward automatic call flow handling – not complex
- not as feature rich
- possibility exists that one customer’s problem can affect others on a shared system
If businesses want fancy latest generation digital phones, then a hosted phone solution is what you want. If you want to use your legacy analog phones, then usually an ATA or analog telephone adapter is going to work with your existing phones.
Digital Phone Systems: Onsite / Hosted or Virtual
A dedicated system is deployed usually onsite, or in a datacenter or possibly as a virtual phone system in a cloud architecture. The deployment is usually a balance of where data is requested to reside and how resilient the system desires are. There are usually more features than a multi-tenant system and complex call routing and call center management tools are common drivers for a dedicated system.
Where it is deployed is the biggest consideration. If there are multiple locations using one phone system then a centrally hosted solution might be the best architecture. If it’s a single office then a phone system hanging on the server room wall or rack is a great option. For those that want to have a dedicated PBX in the cloud, the phone system can be virtualized which can significantly increase the resiliency.
Some Pros:
- feature rich
- flexible onsite, in a datacenter or virtual deployments to meet every IT consideration
- advanced call flow control
- long term storage for recordings
- custom tools such as wall boards for queue monitoring and management
- can failover from digital to analog line service for greater resiliency
Some Cons:
- considering for hardware health
- need a good backup
- can be longer to deploy
- network architecture needs careful consideration and planning if shared with data
- hardware failures can take longer to restore
What is this SIP Trunking all about?
Some legacy systems with analog lines also have the capability to receive digital line service. Each analog line needs a phone number per analog line. In the old days, if someone started wanting more than 5, 6 lines, then they usually went to a PRI or partial PRI service. This is where you loose the ‘the caller is on hold on line 1’ to, ‘the caller is parked in 701’ and you have to dial a code to pick up a parked call. SIP Trunking is very similar to PRI service in behavior, just without the structural limits of a digital service running based on set structures (T1s). With a PRI (Programable Rate Interface) the digital line gets converted to analog and used within the phone system in an analog capacity. With SIP (Session Information Protocol) the phone calls are delivered digitally to the system and handed within the PBX as a digital call.
The nice feature of receiving SIP Trunking service is that you can simply specify the number of simultaneous calls you want to make. This is usually the capacity. One phone number is all you need but you can receive multiple calls on that single phone numbers.
Consultation
If you would like a no obligation consultation we’d be happy to talk with you about your phone system needs. Give us a call at 905-524-2001 or email us. There has been al of of changes over the years. Telecommunications infrastructure is not like it used to be, and with a properly designed and deployed solution your phone service can be very reliable and feature rich. Let us know if we can help! 905-524-2001