subject: The Advantages Of Hosted Business Voip Systems Over On-site Systems [print this page] In order to be competitive and survive in the ever expanding digital world, companies need the latest innovative technologies without the needed cost and the VoIP technologies meet this demand. Business VoIP comes in two basic varieties - on-site systems, such as on-premise IP-PBX and hosted systems, where equipment is housed at the provider location. Both present distinct advantages for businesses with different needs.
Traditionally, enterprises preferred premise-based equipment because of the control and possible long-term cost savings that such an arrangement afforded them. However, for businesses that do not depend on the ability to manage and configure quickly their telephony system, the right Hosted business VoIP solution can offer advantages over traditional premise-based PBX.
While comparing hosted PBX services and premise-based PBX services one should take into consideration the following issues: installation, maintenance and configuration management.
Hosted business VoIP solutions are less likely to have post-installation problems since experts usually conduct pre-installation site reviews. Besides, hosted solutions require fewer customer premise elements. The combination of expert site reviews and less complex equipment installation can mean smoother transitions and decreases the need for trouble-shooting. Moreover, hosted services can be deployed on a line-by-line basis, which means that they can be easily expanded. It allows making a flexible transition from premise-based equipment to a hosted service as they can co-exist with previously existing premise equipment. It means that an enterprise does not need to transit all of its equipment at the same time, which would usually be the case with a premise-based PBX.
Maintaining a Hosted business VoIP system it is possible to fix the arising problems quickly because of the centralised nature of the service. Premise-based solutions often require an on-site visits, which means a period of delay in any trouble-shooting effort. Hosted solutions can reduce the downtime to a few minutes. Besides, hosted solutions usually have 24x7 monitoring and management. Getting the same level of services in a premise-based solution can require a higher (and therefore more expensive) service level agreement. Maintenance issues can be addressed more quickly and efficiently in hosted solutions because the majority of equipment is centrally located. A premise-based solution could achieve the same service speed if it maintained a set of experienced IP specialists on-site, but the cost of that scenario would most likely be high.
A customer of a Hosted business VoIP does not have to worry about managing growth, because the service provider does that. Both increasing and decreasing capacity become a simple matter of contracts with a service provider, rather than buying or selling premise-based equipment. This flexibility can make a hosted solution more attractive to the customer. At the same time, it does not hurt service providers because excess resources can be transferred to other deployments. However, configuration management is one of the areas in which a premise-based solution can make more sense for a business. This will be the case if control or administrative functions are critical to the success of the business.
Premise-based systems allow customers to have control over their systems, but that control brings added costs with it. These costs are associated with the responsibility for and management of premise equipment. Therefore, many customers tend to choose Hosted business VoIP systems. The benefits of hosted telephony solutions may be greater for them than those associated with premise-based solutions.
