Business Telecom Buyer
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Hosted PBX Services: We walk you through the buying process to help you get the Hosted PBX Services you need.
We are your complete resource for information on hosted PBX services. Find out how hosted PBX service works, what the advantages and disadvantages are, and how much you can expect to pay. Then get free competitive price quotes from dealers in your area via our secure quote request service.
Then you can choose to speak with one of our Purchasing Advisors who can walk you through the process and handle any issues or questions that arise. Our Advisors provide these services and more:
- Verify your information and give an overview of the purchasing process
- Provide purchasing tips and send buyer's guides
- Provide supplier profiles and ratings
- Mediate issues with suppliers
Hosted PBX Pricing
- Understand how the hosted pricing model differs from standard phone system contracts.
Features of Hosted
PBX
- Find out about the standard
and advanced features
available through hosted PBX services.
Advantages and
Disadvantages
- Learn the pros and cons
of choosing a hosted PBX service instead of a
traditional PBX.
How hosted PBX services work
The basic idea behind hosted PBX services is pretty straightforward. Most businesses today have a closet full of hardware – the phone system, voicemail, and all the requisite wiring – that runs their telecommunications system. Imagine that entire closet full of equipment being relocated to the phone company's offices without changing the way your phones work, and you've got a hosted PBX service.
Your incoming calls get routed to the service provider. There, dedicated hardware provides all the same features that you'd get out of a premise-based PBX, including voicemail, call forwarding and transfers, and more. When a call is transferred to one of your phones, it's sent over a broadband Internet connection to your office.
The main benefit is that you get all the features and reliability of a high-end PBX phone system without having to maintain it yourself. There are plenty of other advantages, too, especially for mobile or remote employees.
Questions to ask hosted PBX providers
- Do you provide hosted phone service to other businesses like mine?
- What SLAs (service level agreements) do you offer? (How quickly will you respond if we have a problem?)
- Does your service work with my existing Internet connection or do you provide your own?
- Does your pricing include training?
- Will we be able to do basic MACs (moves, adds, changes) without calling you?
- What's the maximum number of users your service can support?
- What kind of phones can we use with your system? Do we have to buy them from you?
- If we want to add additional phone system features later, is that possible?