How To Choose A New Phone System
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How to choose a new phone system: choosing a cloud phone system
A cloud phone system (also known as hosted phone system) is a phone system that unlike IP, digital or analog phone systems, is a phone system that you do not actually have any ownership over nor does it reside in your physical premises. A telecoms company typically owns and operates the equipment on your behalf in the cloud, and as customer the fees incurred depends on the number of handsets and the features required. Hosted phone systems come with a number of pros and cons:
Cloud phone systems typically target SME and mid-market companies with dispersed geographic locations; They start with the basics of IP telephony and voice messaging and purchasers then choose from the following to create a subscriber-specfic offer: presence/IM, email, conferencing, video, collaboration, contact centre and mobility features. Payments are generally made monthly based on the number of users on the system that month and the network/management services in place: typical contracts terms are 36 months with full/substantial liability (facility and per station termination fees) for early termination or downgrades and there is usually a 6-weeks implementation timeframe from date of agreement.
With cloud phone systems, broadband data links will usually need to be updated to handle the new telephony traffic and in fact quality of service is a real problem with cloud phone systems, as much a problem on the customer access side as it is over the public internet. Unfortunately, many cloud phone system providers do an inadequate job in assessing their customer’s networks before selling a cloud phone system solution, but do insist on tieing quality of service guarantees with a quality network. In other words, as a purchaser you have to be wary of being sold something that guarantees perfect voice quality - but that quality is only guaranteed when used on certain types of data connections.
Cloud phone systems: pros and cons
There are various benefits to using a cloud phone system:
- Plug and go - no engineer visits or extra cabling required
- Easy to port geographical numbers onto the service
- Usually self administered web portals - just tick a box for a new extension
- No hardware costs
There are also a variety of other issues with cloud phone system:
- Cloud phone systems do not integrate with Microsoft Exchange, your CRM or company mobile phones
- In-house conferencing is important to many businesses as a way to cut expenses. Cloud phone systems typically charge for conference calls on a per minute, per-user basis
- Call recording, a legal requirement for many businesses, is charged per minute, per-user on hosted
- With cloud telephony there is no actual ownership of the technology. Cloud is essentially a rented solution without eventual ownership, or any opportunity at ownership
- The monthly costs for using cloud usually means high never ending ongoing fees
- Cost is priced per extension and works out very expensive for low volume users
- Cloud phone systems do not have battery backup operative life span in a power cut
- Analog devices such as faxes and modems require extra adapters
- Banks do not allow credit card readers to be used with cloud due to security issues
- The routers for the cloud need careful programming to maintain security - who will do this?
- If your cloud provider is down, all of your phones are down
- If your cloud provider has exceeded their maximum number of concurrent call sessions you will not be able to make an outbound call
- If a custom feature or experience is require this is impossible to add
- It is not possible to switch between cloud providers especially if your internet connection is provided by the same company - customer are usually locked in
- Extension to extension calls routed over your internet connection unnecessarily using bandwidth
- A connection between the service provider and the customer is required for a monthly fee. When the connection goes down, what happens?
- Cloud customers tend to have a limited choice of telephone sets
- Often, on a cloud system, calls will often not ring at the desk phone and the mobile device simultaneously
- Cloud providers offer a very limited selection of support for mobile clients
- Cloud services rarely support IP DECT or multi-line wireless sets
- Customers may have to purchase the phones without the actual system even though they are paying a monthly fee for the service; if they decide they want to move back to a premise-based system, they may end up with a lot of phones they don’t need and can’t use
Previous: What you get with a digital phone system
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Unit 1 Bourne Mill Business Park
Guildford Road, Farnham
Surrey, GU99PS, England
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