The Big Debate
This has been a hot topic over the last couple of years and I'd like to throw out the PRO'S and CON'S of each product so that you can make an informed judgement, and decide which will suit your business. There are many providers out there with lots of different cost plans, options and features so we'll try to keep this as generic as possible. For many small businesses, hosted (also called Hosted PBX or Virtual PBX) or managed VoIP services can be a cost effective way to access advanced telephony and UC features but also have feature limitations and restrictions. An On-Premise PBX has been the standard for many years but with the higher intial cost and ongoing maintenance, complexity and expansion costs, hosted solutions might be the answer...
Here is the information you need to make an informed decision regarding a communications solution and which will suit your business now and into the future.
Hosted (Cloud) PBX - The New IP Centrex
I mentioned at the beginning, there are quite literally 100's of different hosted VoIP providers so I'm not going to mention any of them specifically, I am simply going to summarize key points that are common across most of them (there will be exceptions of course). The telephony features offered per carrier can vary significantly however we are going with the basics of call-in, call-out, transfer, hold and conference. Additional features such as Auto-Attendant, ACD/UCD, Smarphone apps, call routing and CLI may be extra. Some features such as external paging, scheduling, tenanting, hot-desking etc. may not be available.
Hosted PRO'S
- All Telecom equipment resides at the providers data-centre, no PBX switching equipment installed on-site other than IP sets and supporting infrastructure.
- The hosted PBX service provider can resolve service problems remotely without attending site.
- Hosted PBX service providers offer support as needed, you don’t need staff to support your PBX.
- Hosted services manage redundancy and backup for your telephony configuration.
- Purchase and lease phones only as needed. Your system can grow with your future needs, just add phones.
- System updates and enhancements are taken care of automatically by the service provider.
- Local and Long Distance calls are generally provided as part of the contract.
- Telephony is now a fixed cost per-month and considered an OPEX.
- Telephones can be deployed anywhere across the country / globe to support remote workers.
Hosted CON'S
- Connections and voice quality are a result of your Internet connection.
- Loss of Internet service results in loss of phone service (settings can be adjusted so that it goes to voice mail or routed to a cellphone).
- Flexibility of system features and functions are very limited compared to on-premise.
- Customization of features may be slow or unavailable (depending on provider).
- Addtional features and functionality (UC, Smartphone app, ACD/UCD) can come at significant costs over and above basic service.
- Turn around time for service requests vary by provider, check your SLA (Service Level Agreement).
- No choice in telecom carrier for lower long-distance rates/fees.
- Fees can be increased and cancellation fees can be charged.
- You generally never own the equipment, unless part of contract.
- Fixed-Term contracts are generally required from 2-3 years minimum.
- Overall cost can be expensive compared to initial cost of On-Premise PBX.
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As from today, Unified Software R3.5.21 is now available for all Ericsson-LG iPECS platforms and can be downloaded from the N11 Cloud at any time.
We recently replaced our aging 
Becuase our iPECS-UCP is now in the virual world, it is essentially a locally hosted 'cloud' service.