Everyone business, whether small, medium, or enterprises at one time have to deal with the decision making process of adapting the next new technology.  It can be as simple as, should we go with dsl, t1, or cable internet, or as complex as, what should our next phone system platform be, digital, analog or VOIP Phone System.  Regardless of what the decsion is, there is always this one thing about technology!  There is always a Trade Off! 

You want an cheaper phone system - The chances are, you will loose features and benefits of a higher end system.

You want to get the system install fast and not waste too much of existing employees times - This will be great for short term as far as productivity is concern.  When I say short, I'm talking hours or days.  The reality of this is that, it is not recommended.  You will have far too many communication problems.  Employee will not know how to check voicemail and you will loose business.  Employee will not record their names or greeting in the voicemail boxes, which will cause some potential clients not to leave voice messages, and possible loose messages.  Adapting technology such as phone system, voicemail, auto attendant does indeed help with productivity, however, it still does require human intervention.  The more you are willing to learn about the system, the more you will get out of it.  The more you can help streamline your business process.

You want to go VOIP - VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is now the BUZZ in Telecom Industry.  Is there a benefit to a pure VOIP Phone System?  Yes there is!  There are also trade off!  VOIP can have many benefits.  Digital phone system also has it's benefits.
Here are a few benefits of VOIP - It's much easier to intergrate your phone system with your computer system via Tapi (Telephony Application Programming Interface) vs. Digital Phone System.  You ask, what is Tapi?  Tapi is a Microsoft Windows API, which provides helps intergrate computer application software to your phone system.  A good example would be Allworx Call Assistance Software.  With this software, you can now record a conversation to your PC in a .wav format simliar to music or audio files.  You then, can burn it to a cd or dvd or even email out the conversations.  Is there a trade off to VOIP?  Of course there is!  Here's one that we have found our through many installs.  VOIP cannot possibly be as stable as one any analog phone line or the old traditional Digital Phone System.  That's just something we learn from our experience.  Do we still use VOIP?  Sure, we do.  Because of the flexibility, VOIP is still worth the hassle of going through the new learning curve.  Image if we never accepted cell phone back in the days because the quality is not as great as a land line phone.  Where would we be today?  We have accepted cell phone, the goods and the bad:  Drop calls, poor quality at certain locations, etc.  Is there any reasons why VOIP cannot be accepted by all business?

To keep this short, I will just make a list of pros and cons of digital vs voip phone system:

VOIP Pros:  Lots of features, very flexible (you can work from anywhere), very easy to intergrate with computer system or software (outlook, call assistance, iphone, etc), Voip phone can help you save on cable cost 1 data cable vs 1 voice and 1 data cable per stations.
VOIP Cons:  Not as solid as digital phone system or 1 analog phone, however it is still pretty reliable.
Digital Phone System Pros:  In most case, much more sturdy and stable then VOIP Phones. 
Digital Cons:  Total cost of ownership is typically higher,  not as flexible.

If you are a client or customer that have use our products and services and or happy, please leave us a testimonial.  If you are a client or customer that have use our products and services, and or unhappy, we also woule like to know about it so that we can resolve any issues that we can.  If we don't know about it, we cannot help. 

Pure SIP Phone System vs Hosted Phone System

If you are looking into getting a hosted phone system from a provider the most important thing, is that you may want to ask the provider whether or not the phone number they give you can be ported.  Ask yourself, is your business phone number important?  Be careful, as with hosted phone system, your phone numbers aren't really yours.  You are only renting them from your provider.  If you choose to switch provider, it can be a problem.  Look at it like this, would you sign a contract with any service provider for the rest of your life? 

Hosted phone system can be cost effective in the short term, but it may not be in the long term.  Let's say for example, you are a small business with 4 employees that needed 4 phones.  Let's say you are paying $50.00 per seats.  This may be be not much now, but let's say business started booming and you grow to 50 employees.  Now, you will be paying $2500 a month for just the phones.  You will most likely need to increase your bandwidth accordingly for the amount of phones and data traffic that your business require.  Remember, the phone system is hosted elsewhere, so it will utilize more bandwidth than a phone system on site, such as our Allworx VOIP Phone System.

Another thing, with hosted solutions, you are stuck with one carrier.  With Pure Phone System solutions, you can have 2 different carrier, which can be much more flexible when it comes to disaster recovery and or redundant.  You are probably saying, you do not need that much more features now, you may want to think again.  20 years ago, we never thought we would ever needed more storange than a floppy hard drive.  We always wonder why would someone pay for a dsl connection.  We never thought we needed our own personal computers.  Time change, technology change, business will always change.  Are you flexible enough so that you can adapt to the changing enviroment?

Are you currently using the old traditional phone lines such as analog, T1, or Pri?  You may want to look into changing your equipment and or service provider to save money.  If you are currently using analog phone lines, you should look into sip trunks.  It may help you save money.  It's the perfect time to find ways to cut costs, especially through this tough economy.  Sip Trunks are much more flexible then the traditional analog phone line, also known as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).  Let's say for example - Senario 1 - You are a small office with 10 employees, 15 phones, and 7 phone lines.  You have the main line and 5 lines for hunting and 1 for the fax.  This means you can receive 6 calls at one time.  If you would like to add a second department with their own phone number, you will need to order more phone lines or split up the existing hunt group.  Now, you will have to make a decision on how many numbers will be in hunt group 1 and how many numbers in hunt group 2.  If you choose 4 for hunt group 1 and 2 for hunt group 2, Hunt group 1 can only receive a maximum of 4 calls at one time and hunt group 2 can only receive a maximum of 2 calls at one time.  If you had sip trunks or PRI (Primary Rate Interface) also known as ISDN, it's much more flexible.  You can have 6 channels and 100 numbers.  The numbers can be a Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, California, or any number you would like, of course you are on the mercy of what the phone companies can offer.  You do not need to allocate how many channels goes to what hunt group.  The system is smart enough to route calls based on the phone number that was dialed.  On top of this, you can even give every employee or every phone their own phone numbers also known as Direct Inward Dial.  With Sip Trunks, you can utilize 1 phone system for both the phone system in Austin and Dallas which could save you even more money.  You can save on equipment cost, flexibility cost, and or your business may simply be more productive.  You can have 1 employee answer both phones for the Austin and the Dallas office.  You can have Austin receptionist take lunch at 11:00 am while the Dallas receptionist answer phones for both offices.  At 12:00 pm, you can have the Dallas receptionist take lunch while the Austin receptionist take the calls for both offices.  That's about sums it up, Technology can help you save, be more productive, be more flexible, and or in some case, it may help you with all. 

Customer ask us...If we go with the VOIP phone system does that mean we the quality will be poor?
The answer is, not neccessary.  It really depends on how, when, and where you are using the voip functionality.  Let's say for example, if you are just replacing a traditional phone system with an Allworx Voip Phone System and all phones are on the local lan, then should NOT have poor quality on the phones.  This is because the amount of bandwidth on the local lan most of the time exceed the requirement for a clear conversations.  The challenge is normally with remote phones.  Let's say, you have an office in Austin with one remote user in Dallas.  There is a percentage that the remote user may experience a bit poorer quality on the phones as the remote phones will be going through the internet.  Look on the bright side, there are options that can help us resolve this issues.
1.  We can implement WAN technology that have options for Gurantee Quality of Services such as T1, Point-to- Point T1, MPLS, Frame Relay, etc.  These technology may be a little bit more expensive the the traditional dsl or cable modem.  Depending on how many user will be using this technolgy, the cost can be justifiable. 
2.  We can use a less expensive internet connection than T1, Point-to-Point T1, MPLS, and Frame Relay such as dsl or cable modem and install a bit higher end router that can support QoS (Quality of Services).  Keep in mind, even though the router support QoS, we are still on the mercy of the internet, so this solutions would still be consider best effort only.  It's kind of like a cell phone, we sacrifice a bit of quality for flexibility and portability.  Depending on expectations, this can be a very affordable and acceptable solutions!  The internet is much faster now then it was 10 years ago, so most of the time, it is perfectly fine.
3.  We can implement plug and play.  Basically, you take the phone to a remote location (home or office) configure it as a remote phone, and simply program no QoS.  This to me, is really considered best effort or no effort at all.  As usual, depending on expectation, this solutions may work perfectly fine!

Did you know that NEC has an interactive tutorial that will guides you step-by-step through all the telephone and IntraMail features available at your DXS telephone.  Just click on the feature you want to review and follow the intructions for an enjoyable and informative tour through the DXS features.

http://www.bcs-ip.com/intramail_demo.htm