Hosted telephony is where your phone system is housed in the cloud, rather than in your office. It is ideal for small and large businesses, call centres and customer support departments. Using cloud technology removes the need for costly physical hardware on-site and analogue or ISDN telephone lines from phone providers; instead, a business phone system is hosted remotely and connected to via the Internet.
Hosted Telephony / VoIP Key Benefits
- ISDN switch-off: With the phase-out of the ISDN network beginning in 2020, choosing a hosted telephony system removes any dependency on old tech. BT (who run the PSTN/ISDN network) have themselves announced their intention to move all their business customers to VoIP by 2025, so buying traditional phone systems will soon no longer be an option.
- Flexible working: As users only use one number, separate mobile and fixed lines are replaced and each employee can work from different locations, including home, but still be part of the overall communication service. Employees can take ‘landline’ calls on their mobiles when out and about, instead of being tied to their desks, and customers will find it easier to contact you and your team. Furthermore, as your business requirements change, hosted telephony systems allow you to add more lines or sites as required, and you only pay for what you need.
- Cost efficiency: VoIP systems are inherently cheaper than ISDN because traditional phone systems typically require a large up-front investment in servers, network infrastructure and handsets, not to mention the implementation costs. Hosted VoIP systems on the other hand may only require new handsets. VoIP services are usually charged on a monthly basis rather than up-front. Calls within your network are free of charge while calls to mobile and international numbers are considerably cheaper than on ISDN, and features such as voicemail, call-forwarding and conferencing can be included in the monthly costs. And finally, with less equipment there is much reduced need for system maintenance and support, whether in-house or external.
- Business continuity & Disaster Recovery: All services and features are in the cloud i.e. hosted on data centres throughout the country. This means communications will be running in the office, even if the office is damaged (e.g. by flood or fire). Should one data centre go offline, your hosted VoIP provider will immediately re-route your services through other data centres. Service outages can be massively reduced meaning greater business reliability.
- Future-proof technology: With a traditional phone system, at some stage the system hardware on your premises will require an upgrade which is usually costly and will often involve significant downtime. One of the biggest benefits of a hosted IP system is that the responsibility for keeping the system up to date moves to the service provider. As the VoIP service is software-based it is much easier to roll out new updates and features at a faster pace. This eliminates the risk of your solution becoming outdated, or of your business missing out on new developments and the latest features in office telephony. With a managed hosted telephony system you get to enjoy up-to-date technology without dedicating budget and resources to maintaining it.
Whether or not your current system is due for renewal, now is a good time to start looking at hosted VoIP solutions and the benefits it can bring to your business. Whatever the size and shape of your business, Novem can design, supply and deploy robust and resilient internet connectivity, secure connectivity between you and your customers and suppliers, or build a network that links all your different business locations together. To discuss how we can help you with your hosted telephony Manchester, please email us at info@novem-it.co.uk, call 0800 046 9957, or fill in our Contact Form and we will be pleased to contact you.