Digital Voice Telephone Services

Virtual Phone Systems connect customers or clients calling into a main business phone number with employees who are working remotely using their mobile or home phone systems. These types of virtual systems work as an extensive call-forwarding solution in which incoming calls are transferred to each employee’s cell or home phone instead of a desk phone when a customer or client calls the main phone number.

Best for: Small businesses with remote workers or sole proprietorships

Landlines in this instance are traditional phone systems, typically supported by a local or regional phone company. Landlines, also known as public switched telephone networks (PSTNs), are analog systems that run via the telephone company’s traditional copper wiring.

To run a landline service, you need on-premises private branch exchange (PBX) hardware that is used to create multiple extensions and provide phone system features, such as call transferring and call directories.

Best for: Large corporations with larger budgets and in-house IT staff to manage and maintain the systems; necessary for businesses without high-speed internet access

With on-premises systems, all the equipment, including the PBX hardware to keep the phone system running, is housed within your business. On-premises systems require a large capital expenditure as the business will purchase equipment upfront.

Best for: Businesses that don’t feel comfortable using the cloud and want total control over their system and access to equipment at all times; also good for businesses with an in-house IT team that can set up and maintain a VoIP system. Additionally, on-premises systems are better suited for businesses with regulatory or compliance requirements that may be difficult to meet in the cloud

With cloud-hosted systems, there is no maintenance or hardware other than phones to worry about. The service provider houses, maintains and upgrades all of the PBX technology for you. This system lets growing businesses to easily add new lines and provides quick access to new features.

Best for: Growing businesses on a fixed budget that don’t have an IT staff to operate and maintain PBX hardware; also good for businesses that want quick access to new phone system features or have multiple locations and want their system all on one platform

Instead of the copper wires that landlines run on, VoIP phone systems use the same internet connection that a company already uses. VoIP systems provide a feature set that previously only large corporations using expensive PBX hardware had access to, such as automated attendants, call queues, and computer integration, which allows voicemails to be sent to email inboxes and computers to be turned into softphones.

Best for: Small businesses wanting the functionality of a sophisticated phone system at a reasonable price and businesses that want their remote employees to have access to the phone system