Are you contemplating a change or upgrade of your communication system at office? Are you confused over having to decide whether to opt for the premise based VoIP or Hosted VoIP? No more confusions as we are going to learn about the strengths and weakness of both these systems. This will definitely help you to decide on the VoIP system that suits your business and meets its communication needs.
On Premise VoIP Telephone Systems
As the name suggests, on premise IP-PBX or VoIP is a system that is physically based at the office space. You will need to purchase the system and install it at your office where a dedicated IT team maintains and manages it. Now this system is connected to the local telephone lines and the internet to make and receive VoIP calls as well as traditional calls.
Hosted VoIP Telephone Systems
Hosted VoIP systems are the ones that are not located at your office premises and the installation, management as well as the maintenance of the hosted system is all carried out at the service providers end or the data centre. As a user, you will have to only pay for the services as per you requirement. Here you will need to purchase the phones and that is one additional expense you will have to bear.
Now when you have learned about what both the systems constitute, we will dig deeper to learn about the respective strengths and weaknesses.
On premise IP-PBX – Strengths
When it comes to the features offered by on-premise telephone systems, we get to see that it offers a whole lot of features, which are even better than the cloud-hosted VoIP systems. In terms of flexibility, on-premise systems are a winner all the way when it comes to adding more services. The on-premise solution is a cost effective solution for businesses that have a larger operational base. The on-premise systems can easily be integrated with a variety of other business applications like CRM or billing systems. The maintenance costs associated with on-premise system is lesser than the hosted systems, once you have made the initial investment. In the event of a disruption in data connection, you will still be able to experience seamless voice connectivity. With the on-premise system, you should have an emergency plan in place or else you will lose the voice data if all the lines go down.
On premise IP-PBX – Weakness
The initial investment for acquiring an on-premise system is much higher and you will have to invest a lot of money for installing the system as well. On top of this you will have to also bear the costs of updates for the software licensing. With the advancement in technology, the risk of an on-premise system going obsolete is also higher.
Hosted VoIP – Strengths
The hosted business telephone systems are provided as a service by the hosted VoIP service providers. Thus, you will never really have to worry about the installation, management and maintenance of the system. The updates as well as maintenance are carried out centrally by the service provider. You will also be able to avail a numerous features, which can even be higher than the on-premise systems. Disaster management and recovery strategy of cloud-hosted solution is more robust than its on-premise counterpart. Power outages might disrupt the services for some time but hosted solutions can redirect the calls to the mobile devices or voicemail.
Hosted VoIP – Weakness
One weakness that might hold you back from subscribing for a hosted VoIP service is its complete dependency on internet connectivity. There are a few people who even cite the lesser range of features available with the hosted business phone system.
About BCS Consultants
BCS Consultants offers complete range of products and services for networking and communications. In communication we offer on-premise systems from companies such as Toshiba, private cloud based IP, and public cloud based IP Phone systems.
Call us today on (949) 333-1020 for your networking or communication needs.
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