Communication is at the heart of every business, whether it’s through a messaging service, phone lines, or email. While instant messaging applications seem to be the preferred way of communicating nowadays, having a working phone system for businesses is still a requirement.
Today’s phone systems offer businesses of all sizes a wide range of valuable calling collaboration and mobile tools. If you’re looking to get one for your business operations, here are the different systems to look out for and what to expect from them.
Traditional Landline Systems
Traditional landline systems have been around for decades and have been the preferred system to use for a long time. The popular traditional systems are made by Avaya, Nortel, Mitel Panasonic or NEC phone systems which require a device called a PBX in your office as well as digital phones whon the desks. Also known as public switched telephone networks (PSTNs), landlines are analog or Primary Rate Interface (PRI) that run through copper wiring and are connected to the voice server running in your office.
Out of all the options, PSTNs require the most hardware and little to no software at all. Many companies are actually starting to phase out landline systems as newer and better phone systems have taken over and have been proven to perform the same capabilities as landlines and more. Nowadays, traditional landlines are better used for large corporations that have the budget for them and an in-house IT staff to manage and maintain the system.
VoIP Phone Systems
If landlines run on copper wires, VoIP phone systems use the same internet connection that a company already uses. In terms of investing in hardware, it’s not as demanding as traditional landlines but still requires a server to be installed and maintained. With VoIP systems, you can add business phone numbers outside of the city where your business is located, connect those who call a business phone number to remote workers on their mobile or home phones, as well as allow staff to move their desk phone in the office with complex cabling needs, which are all features that a landline system doesn’t provide.
Because of the rise of the VoIP systems, contact centers and other similar businesses became prominent a few years ago because of how easy it is to set them up compared to establishing a traditional landline system.
Cloud-Based VoIP Systems
The newest form of phone system for businesses is cloud-based VoIP systems, which allows growing businesses to easily add new lines and provide quick access to new features. The biggest advantage of cloud-based systems is that it no longer needs a PBX hardware or dial-tone service to purchase and maintain. It’s all up to your provider to take care of all of that for you. Everything can be set up through a computer or your mobile in your company including messaging, video meetings and phone all available from anywhere.
The only disadvantage with this is that you have no control over the hardware being used for your systems. While to most businesses, that’s a sigh of relief, some organizations prefer to control the kind of hardware they invest in for their phone systems.
Conclusion
Finding a phone system that’s right for your business is an essential consideration if you want to have smooth internal and external communications. Today, businesses can benefit from various phone systems designed to cater to their every need and make their work easier.
If you’re planning on installing a phone system for your organization, working with a leader in business communication like BrantTel is the answer. If you want to see what a modern phone system can do for your business click here to learn more. We make it our mission to update your phone systems and do all the heavy lifting for you. Contact us today to get started!