It can be seen that VoIP phone systems are rapidly replacing the traditional business phone systems. With the flexibility and versatility offered by VoIP systems, it is gaining popularity with business enterprises around the globe. And, one of the most regarded VoIP systems is the hosted VoIP.
These hosted VoIP systems is regarded as cost saving and a modern phone system by businessmen today.
Hosted VoIP means to say that the hardware and PBX is hosted at an off-site location where the VoIP telephone service is used.
For a clearer picture; an office can possess the VoIP telephone service but the PBX phone system could be hosted by the VoIP service provider. The hosting is done in colocation, which implies that there are multiple companies using a single facility, data centers.
Although there is no ownership for having hosted VoIP, small businesses and even large enterprises have chosen hosted business VoIP over investing in their own because the cost of setting-up and owning your own PBX system along with its maintenance is very expensive compared to a hosted one.
The main reason businesses are shifting from traditional phone systems to the hosted VoIP are the various advantages it offers. Listed below are some of the important advantages having a hosted VoIP has over the traditional PBX phone system:
- The most obvious advantage that hosted VoIP has over the traditional phone system is that it is easier to install and it costs far less. With the hosted VoIP, all you need to do is to choose the suitable plan for your business from your service provider and minimize it to the lowest cost possible.
- It possesses a multitude of additional new call features along with the traditional features offered before. New features that answers different fields of service for your business have been designed by various service providers as a means to identify themselves from the vast market.
- It has a larger scale. It may not be now but certainly you would be planning to expand and grow your business. As such, a hosted VoIP system allows you to easily add or remove phone lines seamlessly with less hassle.
- Outsourced maintenance. Like any other systems, your communication systems would probably need regular maintenance and that means an additional cost to your business. But, with hosted VoIP maintenance is now being handled by your service provider as it is covered with your monthly fees.
- It is reliable. A hosted VoIP system can be relied on to connect every call without a lagging response time, delays or lapses in call quality. This is due to the reason that internet based telephony is known for its improved quality over that of the traditional PSTN connection.
- Lastly, disaster recovery. With sudden and unexpected disasters like fire and earthquakes, you can say goodbye to your traditional phone systems as they would be rendered entirely useless in these cases. But, in the case of having a hosted VoIP system your business communication can function as usual because your PBX system is protected properly by your service provider. And so, your flow of communication can function normally in cases of emergencies.
But do take note that like all existing technologies today, hosted VoIP systems are also subjected to various limitations. Some of these limitations may include:
- Reliability of service towards electricity. This would mean that in cases where you do not have a power back-up during times of power outages then your communication system would be halted. Although, with the use of UPS this could be solved but it would mean additional costs.
- Emergency calls. Another drawback of VoIP is one involving emergency calls. Unlike the traditional phone system where operators can easily track your location in cases where you can’t talk, VoIP phone systems is essentially the transfer of packets of data over the internet which would mean that there would be no physical address that is readily available. In result, it would be hard to locate the current location of your call if you are using a VoIP phone.
- This drawback is the main concern for VoIP as it is with other Internet-based technology existing today. The most prominent issues involves: service theft, viruses and malware, spamming, call tampering, and phishing attacks.