Cloud Based Phone Systems (VoIP)

Hosted telephone systems utilising Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) have been around for many years and the last couple of years has seen massive growth in businesses utilising this cloud based technology.

So what is a Cloud based Hosted VoIP service? 

Traditionally a business that needed a telephone system would purchase or lease a phone system, or PBX as they are known and the physical hardware and software would be located in the building that they worked from. The on-site PBX handled all of the in and outbound calls and held all of the intelligence that supported features like welcome greetings and menus, call transfer, hunt groups and voicemail etc. A business that had more than one location would you needed a PBX at each location as the intelligence needed to be based in the location it was needed.

If you needed to increase the capacity of the PBX or wanted to upgrade to newer software versions then there would be an upgrade cost to do so. You would also require an annual maintenance contract on the PBX to ensure it got fixed quickly in the event that something went wrong, after all if you lost your ability to make or receive calls it would quickly have an impact on your ability to trade.

What is different about a Cloud based Hosted VoIP system?

A Hosted VoIP or Cloud based system does everything that an on-site PBX does, except the intelligence for it sits in a secure data centre and is accessed via an internet connection.  With a Cloud based VoIP system you can connect all of your offices and even home workers to the same telephone system giving you a single platform to run telephony across the business.  This means you can have a single reception point for a number of offices and calls to the entire business can be handled from one location. 

The system costs are based on a monthly user licence fee so you can easily identify the cost of using a Cloud service.  Because it is a user based pricing model you only pay for what you need and can easily expand or reduce the users depending upon the needs of your business. 

In addition, because a Cloud based system is not site centric it offers greater flexibility of call handling across the business as well as giving you excellent business continuity options should you find yourself in a distatster recorvery situation.

If you wish to find out more about how a Cloud based Hosted VoIP system can benefit your business please contact us on 0845 310 5390 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .