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magazine
The benefits of hosted
Today, hosted telephony provides a far
more cost-effective solution with huge
benefits for flexible working and business
continuity for all sizes of business. Hosted
telephony offers significant financial
advantages because it requires minimal
capital expenditure as billing is based on
a monthly service charge, which is tax
deductible, whereas capital expenditure
on a PBX system is only partially tax
allowable. Consequently costs are
estimated to be about 50% less than a
conventional on-premise phone system.
All businesses benefit from the
disaster recovery potential of hosted
telephony. If it is not possible to operate
from their normal premises, staff still
have access to a hosted telephony
service from another location.
In operation, hosted IP phone
services offer all the features and
functionality of a conventional phone
system, such as extension dialling, plus
a number of additional benefits. The
system can be controlled via an on-line
administration portal, allowing change
of feature set-ups as required, without
incurring any engineering charges.
For organisations with remote
workers, hosted IP phone systems
provide a means of presenting a
professional face to the outside world
without the need for dedicated or
additional business premises. Staff
working remotely from home have full
access to phone system functionality,
just as if they were in the office, and can
join in office meetings using the audio
and video conferencing facilities of the
systems.
Hosted IP is also ideal for multisite
operations because colleagues can call
each other using abbreviated extension
numbers and without incurring public
network charges. External calls in to the
business can be distributed easily to users
over multiple sites, who can also transfer
and forward calls to other extensions as a
part of a centralised hosted system.
The benefits of on-premise
While there is a clear shift towards hosted
telephony, there are still circumstances
where the more traditional on-premises
deployment of a phone system is the
best option. Even though there is usually
a higher capital expenditure with this
route, as the system is usually purchased
outright, the ongoing costs of this sort
of solution are often much lower than a
hosted system, and there is always the
option of leasing on-premises systems to
avoid any upfront cost.
Despite the multiple benefits a hosted
phone system can provide companies
operating out of multiple sites, many
companies still only have a single site.
Dominic Norton, Direct Sales Manager for Spitfire, outlines the pros and
cons of hosted and on-premise business communication systems.
Your place or mine?
Hosted telephony
All
businesses
benefit from
the disaster
recovery
potential
of hosted
telephony
A company with high staff numbers in a
single site can still be served well from an
on-site deployment, as the new phone
systems available today can provide
the same level of functionality, whether
deployed on site or in a hosted set-up.
New IP-based phone systems, such
as leading IP system 3CX, can also be
deployed in a virtualised environment. This
means they can easily be incorporated
into existing virtual environments without
the historical limitations of a traditional
analogue or digital phone system.
Systems such as this can also be
backed up to other locations, such as
a data centre, to overcome problems
caused by loss of functionality at the
premises where the phone system is
located.
One of the main drivers for a new
phone system in the current climate
is to move away from traditional
analogue and digital (ISDN) lines for the
purposes of cost saving and flexibility.
Companies that have invested in phone
systems connecting to these lines do not
necessarily have to change their system
to benefit fromVoice over IP (VoIP), such
as Spitfire SIP Trunks, as many phone
systems can be upgraded to handle this
new technology.
Alternatively, a gateway can be
deployed in combination with an existing
on-site system to make the transition
even easier. This approach can also get
around the limitation of older style
cabling as new IP systems, both hosted
and on-site, will need CAT5e or CAT6
cabling in place.
Another important factor to consider
is connectivity to the site in question.
The performance of hosted systems is
dependent on the quality of the internet
connection they are connected over. If
the connectivity options at a particular
location are limited or of low quality, then
a traditional on-site phone system with
analogue or digital lines may still be the
best choice.
