The Choices of Voice Technology

With all the advances in technology, desk phone service has been a slow uphill. The telecom of yesteryears when carriers charged a small fortune for phone service have slowly come to an end. Some companies have not taken the leap to Voice over IP, fearing poor voice quality and unreliability. They have stuck to their PBX systems and POTS lines even though most of their peers have been moving to the cloud to a more powerful voice system.
 
The end of the analog service is near and inevitable. With the boom of the Internet, every technology service is moving to the cloud and voice is not an exception.  The reality is, whether you want it or not your company will end up in the cloud, the question is not if, but when. That being said, there are many options to transition to cloud voice service. The proof is that one of the major PBX vendors (Avaya) recently filed for bankruptcy. If you are still attached to your old Avaya, Toshiba or any other PBX, you can slowly transition to the cloud by switching your PRI or POTs lines to ePRI, SIP Trunks, or ePOTs. By doing this small change, you can lower your current phone bill up to 60% and keep the features that you are so accustomed to using. Once your current analog technology dies, you can just switch to digital phones such as Polycom or Astra/Mitel. When you are ready to explore Voice over IP, there are many options in the market and many ways to configure the technologies. This process can be very overwhelming and time-consuming if you are not familiar with the options and various vendors available that provide this service.
 
With voice, It is not a one size fits all. Some of the questions we ask our clients to tailor a proposal are:

• Are there any travelers or outside sales people? Hosted voice is an excellent choice for travelers. With features such as simultaneous calling in which your desk phone rings on the number of devices of your choice; this is a great feature to make sure you don’t miss any calls such as that very important client that you are waiting to sign a contract. Softphones for your cell or laptop is another feature that works very well for workers on the move.

• Another question we ask if there are any remote workers. With hosted voice, you can have a phone for a user that works from home or across the world. You will still be able to extension dial within the company and act as if the person is working right at your office.

 
There are many more questions such integrations with cloud receptionist systems, being able to add and delete a user, and move phone numbers in a web portal, call recording and much more.
 
Having an expert that will ask the right questions and is carrier neutral is the best choice if you are thinking of changing to a better solution or looking for alternatives to just lower your costs. At Toral Consulting we are in the business of selecting the best technology solution at the best available rates. Let us do the leg work, contact us today.