Cloud Communications Explained
Unified cloud communications help you stay productive, connected, and untethered. They allow for remote collaboration, messaging, and making phone calls from anywhere. Hosted phones are a big part of cloud communications. They provide a professional calling experience from anywhere at an affordable price.
Understanding hosted services can be a bit confusing. What is a hosted phone? Why is it better than a regular old phone? What is VoIP? Let’s take a look.
Hosted IP PBX
In the old days, companies used an internal private branch exchange (PBX) to connect their phones to each other and to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The PSTN is what connects phones all over the world, so we can make and receive calls.
Fast forward a few years, and PBXs are moving to the cloud. Not the fluffy white things in the sky, but servers connected to the Internet. This new system is known as a hosted PBX, and creates new possibilities that weren’t possible with traditional systems.
Hosted Phones
To make and receive calls over a hosted PBX, we need compatible phones. Hosted phones—also called IP phones, VoIP phones, or SIP phones—use the Internet to connect to a hosted PBX, allowing them to make and receive calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
VoIP
VoIP is simply a tech term meaning your phone connects to the Internet to make and receive calls. In a hosted system, VoIP calls to both external numbers and internal extensions are made possible through the PBX. Because that PBX is in the cloud, hosted phones don’t need to be in the same location for extension-to-extension dialing. In other words, offices aren’t confined to one building or location.
Why Choose a Hosted System Over an Internal PBX or Analog Connection?
There are numerous reasons to choose a hosted phone system over traditional solutions. Here are a few:
Cost effectiveness
- VoIP plans are often less expensive than traditional analog plans
- Because the phones work over Internet, they don’t require analog lines be installed at the location you’ll be using your phones
- Traditional systems are managed by an IT team. Hosted services require little or no support from an IT department. Allowing your IT to work on other
Easy installation
- Because the phones connect to the Internet they are easy to set up
- In most cases you can just plug your phone into an Ethernet port and be ready to go
Work from anywhere
- Nowadays the Internet is available virtually anywhere, so your phone can work in multiple locations
- The Internet also means that remote or at-home users can make extension-to-extension calls to various users in an office
- Softphones—applications on your computer or smartphone—let you make calls on the go or at a location where an Ethernet cable isn’t available
Professional call routing
- It’s easy to add auto attendants (“press one for sales”), ring multiple phones, add call queues, and more when your phone system is managed over the Internet
- Additionally, you can make many of your own changes using nothing more than a computer
- And much more
- There are many reasons to choose a VoIP system. We only listed a few. If you have questions or want to learn more, please contact us here.