Voice-over-IP (VoIP) has become the most popular approach to business telephone service for business in the United States. Phone service is the fastest growing part of our business and in almost all engagements with customers, VoIP is what they are choosing. 

36% of businesses have made the switch to cloud phones, according to a recent survey. That means though many have switched, many more customers remain to migrate from analog or PRI phone systems to a VoIP-based system. 

Internet-based phone technology is now 20 years old. In fact, the first time Atlantech Online offered VoIP service to a customer was way back in 2002! That's over 15 years ago! Though progress was slow at first, it is now common knowledge that VoIP offers more potential benefits to businesses than ever before. Topping the list of benefits is cost savings, but in more and more cases, I see customers switching because of the greater flexibility in meeting the needs of their mobile and remote workforce.

Phone systems are a big investment with a long-term impact for small businesses. If you get the wrong system, you could have problems. If you go cheap, you could suffer additional expenses when you try to scale for growth. If you go expensive, you could pay for a lot of bells and whistles you don't need, which would put a strain on your budget.

Some of the features that you'll typically get with small business phone systems are:

A survey of small business security professionals revealed that distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks cost an average of $50,000 for mitigation, reduced employee productivity, and lost revenue.

If your organization has the problem of 50 grand laying around and can't find anything to do with it, just sit back and wait. Hackers will help you out with that issue.

How common are DDoS attacks? According to one research team’s estimate, one is launched every 23 seconds. And that interval is shrinking. As a 20+ year old ISP, Atlantech Online has been on the front lines of network security issues and worked diligently to reducing risk for us and our customers. This has become even more crucial since becoming a Telephone company, as well, in 2005. 

Lower cost is one of the most common reasons businesses switch to a Cloud Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone system. Cloud-based business phones can be significantly less expensive than PRI Lines or other on-premises deployments. However, there are many other benefits of cloud communication tools besides lower cost.

According to the CompTIA 2018 Cloud Computing Trends Research survey, the top business benefits of cloud adoption include:

• Simplicity and speed in adopting new features
• The ability to add new capabilities
• Modernizing legacy IT environments
• Avoidance of software upgrades and licensing fees

These benefits can all facilitate business agility, which is a competitive advantage. With a Cloud PBX phone system, organizations can achieve flexible scalability. Unlike with traditional PBX systems, new features can be added immediately without having to purchase equipment or pay licensing fees. A single Cloud PBX phone system can expand from 150 users to 300 without having to add new features.

Primary Rate Interface (PRI) circuits are a well-established technology for business phone systems. Investing in PRI can seem like a low-risk way to meet your company’s need for reliable, quality voice communications.

While PRI circuits are stable, they have some limitations compared to alternatives such as SIP Trunking for business. Before investing in PRI Lines, it's important to understand costs, how the technology works, and potential challenges.

For some specialized use cases, a PRI circuit is the right choice. To determine whether your business is best served by PRI, SIP, or a hybrid mixture of cloud and traditional phone technology

Today's business communications involve a lot more than just voice calls. While phones are still a critical tool for communications, professionals use a lot of different technologies to converse. In a given day, it's not uncommon for the average employee to rely on phones, email, mobile apps, chat, text, and video conferencing.

Recent technological advancements have expanded the options companies have in business phone systems. Increasingly, organizations are switching from dated options like Primary Rate Interface (PRI lines) to more integrated options like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to save costs.

Switching to internet-based phones is the right choice for some companies, but VoIP-only isn’t a robust enough solution for many businesses today. Many organizations can benefit more from a Unified Communications approach, which supports voice, text, conferencing, mobility, and other forms of communication.

If you’re evaluating new business phone systems, you may be wondering what the difference is between Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and VoIP, and which is best.

In 2018, your customers still want to call your business.

The most common reason people pick up the phone is to get a question answered quickly or to talk to a real human, according to a recent Google study. Understanding that phone calls still matter for customer service and employee collaboration is a pretty simple idea.

What’s less straightforward is choosing the right type of phone system for your business. With options like PRI Lines, SIP Trunking, and VoIP, simply keeping all of the acronyms straight is difficult. Selecting the option that will offer the most value for your business is even more complex.

If you’re trying to understand the advantages and limitations of PRI Lines, you're in the right place. PRI technology has some distinct pros and cons, each of which can impact companies in different ways.

Organizations are making the switch to cloud-based communication tools for better security, reliability, and cost-savings. According to one recent study, an estimated 62% of businesses have made the switch to SIP trunking. With a Unified Communications vendor, organizations who adopt SIP trunking can unlock a standard set of protocols for cloud-based business phone and multimedia data exchange.

For many organizations, the benefits of switching to a SIP trunk over alternatives such as PRI phone lines are clear. However, the path to finding the right provider and achieving a seamless implementation of cloud-based business phones can be more complex. How do you ensure satisfaction and quality of service once your new business phones are live?

Is the “best” hosted voice-over-IP (VoIP) solution much different for a small business than it is for an enterprise?

Actually, not entirely.

Organizations of all sizes need the same thing from their hosted VoIP solutions, which is quality. When quality is defined as the value for cost, it’s the single most significant predictor of customer satisfaction and quality of experience.

Making the switch to hosted voice can allow your organization to unlock significant cost savings while achieving a solution that meets the needs of your mobile and remote employee workforce. However, finding the right provider isn’t always straightforward.

There’s no shortage of vendors, and these options can vary significantly in terms of service options, pricing, and approach. Even if you’re certain that voice-over-IP (VoIP) is the right approach, vendor selection is another story entirely, and proceeding with caution is an important tool to avoid dissatisfaction with your new business phone system.

Upgrading to hosted voice shouldn’t be challenging, but far too many organizations experience hidden costs, quality dissatisfaction or other pitfalls due to confusion during the vendor selection process.