Hosted PBX Tears Down the Barriers

It’s time to tear down the barriers holding your business back from next generation telephone service. Whether you use old TDM solutions or an in-house PBX, it’s time to take a moment and consider Hosted PBX as an alternative. There are many different areas of this solution and it’s important that we take the time to look at each one. Let’s begin with the feature set. Features available with this solution include a single business number from which extensions allow routing to all departments and employees, custom music and messages for a personalized hold experience, auto attendant to professionally direct front desk calls and ease the load, and conference calls. Additional advanced features include voicemail to email transcription, e-fax support, hunt groups for call distribution within a department, and find me/follow me to forward calls when an employee is out of the office. There are many more possible features and the exact list of what your service will include will depend on the service provider.

The availability of these features makes this solution a big step up from traditional TDM offerings. When compared with in-house PBX systems, the feature list might not immediately seem to invite much contrast. The real difference is to be found in Hosted PBX eliminating the reliance on equipment kept on premises. This has long been the big barrier to entry as the upfront investment of on premises solutions is high enough to keep out small businesses. Even larger enterprises can find it a pain to manage the system and keep track of all the necessary updates and upgrades. There’s also a risk that the hardware will become outdated and need to be replaced by current equipment at great cost.

These problems can be solved by letting the service provider handle all hardware and just accessing the services themselves via IP connection. There’s no equipment to get outdated on your end and the service provider is responsible for keeping it up to date. This gives you a lower entry cost, lower ongoing costs, and increased flexibility in your communications, while also providing all the great features and benefits that you want from a PBX.

TDM solutions are increasingly being left behind and even the standard in-house PBX is finding itself challenged by the effectiveness of its fully managed variant. Hosted PBX offers all businesses the chance to have a professional and fully equipped phone system without the cost or headaches that commonly come with the hardware for such services.