Business VoIP Service
Get the Best Quality without Putting Your Business at Risk

Business VoIP Service can provide some outstanding and immediate benefits for your business. But there are also some key elements to consider before you choose a VoIP service provider. Before you sign a contract for voip phone service (especially one that locks you in for a minimum term agreement), it’s important to have all the relevant information about business VoIP alternatives and VoIP service advantages. It’s interesting how I keep noticing the term IP Centrex. I’m not sure if it’s actually appearing in more articles, literature and advertising, or if I’m simply more tuned in to it. This term does provide a way of explaining Hosted VoIP – Business VoIP Service by way of analogy.

Centrex

Centrex was once a common business telephone service offered by the local telephone company that provided ‘advanced’ features we now associate with on premise, customer owned, telephone systems – intercom, call forwarding, call transfer, long distance toll restriction, and so on. Think of the ‘custom calling’ features available for residential and business service such as remote access to call forwarding or call waiting caller ID.

Centrex was touted as an advantage to businesses that could obtain features without having to buy a phone system, and represented tremendous monthly revenues to the phone company.

Today, hosted VoIP phone service, “IP Centrex” can similarly provide features – find me follow me, conferencing, automated attendant and voicemail – along with local dial tone and long distance calling, for businesses interested in getting functionality for a monthly recurring cost, no capital expenditure, no equipment to maintain.

Importance of QoS

QoS stands for Quality of Service. Our Accessline Hosted Business VoIP Service is unique in many ways, but perhaps the most important and unique distinction is the requirement that prospective customers run a multi-day network quality VoIP test. We know of no other VoIP provider that requires quality testing as part of the sales and installation process. Unfortunately, that means that other providers are actually willing to install voice service on a network that may or may not be well suited for VoIP.

If QoS isn’t adequate, you may experience dropped calls, echo, garble, the inability to hear or be heard, and so on. Our VoIP Test application is loaded on a PC running on your network, the network your voice traffic will ultimately use. Simulated voice traffic is sent to the application critical components are measured, such as connectivity, packet loss and latency, all variables that can affect quality of service and cause problems like the ones noted above. Your network must actually pass the VoIP test in order to purchase service. That translates into considerable peace of mind for customers who may have experienced poor VoIP quality with other companies. Right-click to download our QoS Flyer here.

Speaking of peace of mind, when you order one of our Accessline products, you don’t have to worry about a term commitment. First, you receive a full 30-day, unconditional satisfaction guarantee. Second, we are all committed to earning your business each and every month. If you’re ever unhappy, you can simply cancel the service, no charges or penalties.

In looking at options for business VoIP service, namely SIP trunking installed on customer-owned equipment versus hosted VoIP, a cloud based telephone system, it is imperative that businesses identify what they want out of VoIP. Many VoIP service features are offered a la carte, so depending on what you’d like your communications system to accomplish for you and your callers, and depending on the size of your business, a hosted VoIP PBX system can become quite costly. You are basically renting your phone system forever. It’s also important to understand which providers offer line sharing and which can only provide a single line to a single phone. If you’ve ever used or owned a key system or PBX, this limitation can be annoying to adjust to.

Line Sharing

Business VoIP Service providers will provide equipment and lines for your business. The actual telephones are the equipment, and the lines or SIP trunks provide your dial tone, your pathways for each conversation. In most cases, each phone has its own line and you will pay anywhere from $15 to $50 monthly for the line. With Accesslines, you can order half as many lines as phones if you wish. For instance, a medical office, or a retail store, might need 10 actual telephones, but in terms of simultaneous conversations, 10 lines would be overkill, and more costly.

In such a case, the customer might order 10 phones and 5 shared lines, that is, the lines would be shared by all the phones – 10 phones and 5 simultaneous conversations satisfies the customer’s needs and can save them considerable monthly expense.

Hardware or Hosted?

Every business or organization is different. We generally look closely at specific needs and requirements on a case-by-case basis to determine the best fit for a customer given various options for hardware installed on site, and our award winning hosted business VoIP service. If your company invests in a business phone system, you can still take advantage of some cost saving bells and whistles from the provider such as robust conferencing and webfax, while utilizing the phone system for advanced functionality such as call queuing, call recording and call reporting.

With hosted VoIP, the service provider may connect to a very basic system on your business’ premise, or directly to endpoints (telephones), often Cisco or Polycom brands. Most forecasters indicate amazing growth in the coming few years for both hosted VoIP and SIP trunking. In some cases, it may make sense to start with our hosted VoIP phone service, Accessline and take advantage of Line Sharing, then as your business changes or grows and your needs become more sophisticated, you may want to evaluate the costs and benefits of investing in a business voip phone system and integrating business VoIP service or SIP trunks.

Utilizing VoIP in either way opens terrific possibilities for cost savings, greater mobility, the opportunity to telecommute from home, and the option for networking multiple offices.

Establishing a Local Presence Outside Your Immediate Geographic Area

Another useful feature available with business VoIP service is the ability to establish a local presence in a remote market. For example, a company based in San Antonio, Texas can have local numbers in Austin, Houston, Dallas, Corpus Christi, Midland-Odessa, etc. This allows customers to call the company without incurring any long distance charges The San Antonio based company doesn’t have to pay for toll free charges for incoming calls from remote markets either. Moreover, many people like to do business with local companies and so the San Antonio based company can appear local with a local published number, rather than a toll free number.

Contact Us for a Free Analysis

If you’d like to explore the benefits and costs of business VoIP Service, we’re always eager to help. Call or use the Contact Form on our Website. We’d love to hear from you and assist.