Why are hosted ip pbx systems so popular?

Chad,

In addition to what Caty mentioned, also consider the plus for smaller organizations which might not have a person skilled in telecom on staff, and might not be doing enough in this area for a person on staff to become proficient in this skill set. This makes it an easier decision to outsource that functionality.

-ASB: http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker

Chad,

In adddition to the answers above, business continuity is a main reason I have customers of mine entertaining the idea of the hosted IP PBX. Not only is it cost effective from a start up side, but also from any downtime. The phone system sits in a hardened data center with power back-up, multiple uplink connections, as well as allowing calls to be re-routed easlily and often automatically, from anywhere. Think of what a call brings to your company in the way of revenue and what that would cost if you were to not receive it.

Call quality has gotten better as well. You can even get HD voice these days. Take a look at one of the big players who build the carrier grade servers in the market: www.broadsoft.com.

Caty hit the nail on the head with the reliability of the carrier you use for internet. Your quality will only be as good as your connection.

Good Luck!
Sara

I need to add 2c about quality. Internet connection is a "best effort" kind of service. There is no SLA (Service level agreement) of any kind with your ISP. That means if interconnect from your ISP to your telephony provider will become congested of unavailable for any period of time and you will experience difficulties with voice quality, then you have nowhere to complain to. Plus you need to configure your access router to provide adequate QoS (Quality of Service) which will prioritize voice traffic. Plus routers can actively prioritize outgoing traffic and have limited gears to manage incoming traffic, which will be queued by ISP equipment which does not care about voice. When someone in the office will start multi-threaded bit-torrent over UDP it is really hard to manage because UDP has no speed control like TCP and will saturate the connection resulting in voice quality issues.

The solution is to go with "integrated" package. Connection should be provided by the same company as hosted PBX services. In this case all tricks which manage IP traffic in both directions will be in place, customer service will be able to resolve any quality issues or locate them if the source is in CPE (Customer premises equipment) such as your network switch in the office.

Another alternative is a "Managed" VoIP PBX. This is a hybrid solution in which the Managed Provider places a [usually proprietary] IP PBX on the customers site and provides all the hardware, the installation & configuration, the broadband connection, calling plan, maintenance and service for the duration of the contract at a fixed cost per "seat" or phone per month.

The benefits to this type of offering is that disaster recovery for inbound call re-routing is done at the Central Office [Phone Company] level and the fact that the PBX is located on site means the basic functionality of the PBX still exists if the Internet connection fails or becomes unusable and outbound calls can still be routed thru other existing data connections or back-up phone company lines.

The onsite [proprietary] IP PBX also can usually provide status and telemetry data for the WAN (Broadband. connection) as well as the internal LAN which means proactive routing can be handled in real time.

There is usually an initial "Installation" cost in these scenarios but it is cheaper than a hardware purchase and includes all outbound calling so there are no other costs you have to pay to the local phone company. There is also the convenience of having a single source provider for everything associated with the voice services.

I am familiar with the http://www.whalebacksystems.com Managed offering and it is a robust solution but slightly more costly than a straight hosted offering such as the http://www.prospeed.net/ipbx.shtml or similar Hosted solution.

Disclaimer: I am an independent contract engineer/consultant so I have no association to any particular technology or service provider.

Phil DAnnolfo
Voice Solutions
http://voicesolutions.us

Using Virtual PBX system you can minimize your phone cost and it works like a virtual receptionist in your office and forwards the calls to "n" number of extensions. For all kind of business levels it is very much useful. I would like to request to visit the sites http://pbxplus.com for pbx services and http://invox.com for IVR services. I completely satisfied with their PBX service.

Chad,
I always suggest going to the source for your solutions. Hosted and managed IP PBX solutions are as good as your connection, the same as a PRI connection.
The difference relates to the available functions and options. With equipment based solutions you are “buying the car”, upgrading it with fuss dice and taking it to the shop with the PBX guy.
With a Hosted and Managed solution, the product is a fee based structure and you get all of the functions and options available with no maintenance, etc…Additionally, your organizations is now scalable and can open an office anywhere in 24 hours with the same functionality as the other sites.

Talk with Daren Prine at Northwinds Contact Solutions.

Northwinds Contact Solutions offers each client a fully hosted and managed customer experience that works with your current technology, no software or equipment. A positive customer experience is critical in staying competitive in today’s market. With Northwinds Contact Solutions’ state-of-the-art Automated Client Response (ACR) solution our clients boost efficiency, provide outstanding customer service and gather information to identify
and improve processes.
Clients are using our Automated Client Response solution in a variety of ways. We have several large telecom companies, utility providers and other service organizations that are enjoying tremendous benefits from our ACR solution and are finding new uses for it every month.

Our clients benefit from:
• High customer contact rates
• Consistent follow-up contact rates
• Increased marketing participation
• Increased Advertising and Operations ROI
• Increased client experience ratings
• Increased client retention percentages

Summary of Service Organization Products
Virtual Call Center Platform (Call Center Phones/CRM/Intranet Site):
• No equipment or software
• Enterprise level call center platform
• Complete Inbound and Outbound functionalities (routing, reporting, etc…)
• Call recording, live call monitoring, live call whisper
• Customizable CRM (client data base, invoice management, client history, etc…)

Quality Assurance Survey Platform:
• No equipment or software
• 100% call recording
• Customizable agent grading system
• Quality Assurance feedback trending

Office Administrative Desk Phone System:
• No PBX or soft ware required
• Direct dialing; Group routing; Extension dialing
• Call recording
• Call traffic reporting
• Local and National inbound numbers

Northwinds Contact Solutions focuses on its clients’ particular needs and works closely to develop solutions for their specific applications. Northwinds is your complete solution for customer experience excellence.

Most companies nowadays uses hosted ip pbx systems, and I guess that's the one reason why hosted ip pbx systems is trending, aside from the fact that it offers a whole lot of services, yes, it is also cost effective and do have a feature of better call quality.

Though most of the things have already been discussed by other people. Let me consolidate it like this. Hosted IP Pbx systems are getting popular not only because of their cost effectiveness but also they empower an individual or a business with a lot of features. One can attend the call, does not matter where he is at that point of time. It works on any internet enabled device like PC, Laptop, hardphones(require ATA), smartphones. Apart from that people working from different locations for an organization can receive the calls on a common number for all the locations. One can get location specific toll free no’s as well so that customers call will increase. Apart from that it has features like voice to text features, e-fax features, call parking, call hunting, virtual attendant etc which makes it more popular. Check this link for the same:- http://www.therealpbx.com

Hi,

I appreciate your constant update on the telecom trends.

I represent PBX Plus (http://www.pbxplus.com) which is based on the award winning (Best of Show for SMB at IT Expo, LA 2009) platform – InVox (http://www.invox.com).

We would like to see you signup and review PBX Plus. I would be happy to add a FREE US or UK number with unlimited minutes to your account.

Your number would greet your callers with “Thanks for calling… Please say the name of the person or department you are trying to reach.” Caller can just say your name “…“and call will be forwarded to your mobile, landline or Skype account. It works with my Skype, offers free speech recognition, voicemail and voicemail transcription, eFAX (Fax In), Fax Out, Outbound FAX, Fax on Demand,unlimited extensions and sub-extensions etc.

The drag and drop designer (visio-like) can be used to configure PBX in just 15 mins. Wizard configures the PBX based on the answers to each question about your business.

In fact, show attendees at IT Expo walked out “This is the best I have seen till day for telephony era!”

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

Adam Smith
PBX+