Comparison of VoIP Hosted Phones & Traditional PBX

Hosted PBX Vs Traditional PBX

For years, enterprise-level organizations often had only one scalable choice for phone systems. Private Branch Exchange – or PBX for short – required costly equipment and expertise in order to handle inter-office and external communication.

However, as the Internet has become faster and more reliable, hosted PBX phone systems now offer an economically sound alternative to these traditional systems for some companies. However, it’s important to understand the differences between the two.

PBX vs VoIP Cost Considerations

The main reason many people consider replacing an on-premise PBX has to do with costs. Upfront, there are capital costs for hardware, licenses, software, maintenance contracts, and other fees. Hosted systems, in contrast, have all their infrastructure available via the cloud, therefore initial costs are limited to purchasing only VoIP phones.

Over time, hosted PBX solutions also can save money as they use normal Internet communication protocols instead of the public switched telephone network protocols, which are subject to fees for long-distance calls. On a monthly basis, some organizations have saved up to 80% by using a hosted system. Companies already need high-speed Internet, so this can be leveraged to use a hosted PBX system. When considering traditional PBX vs VoIP, cost is a major consideration.

Digital PBX vs VoIP Installation Difference

Installing traditional PBX systems are quite involved. When looking at PBX vs VoIP, the initial investment in time and money should also be considered. For traditional systems, hardware and software must be installed and vetted. All digital telephones must be retrofitted and there are often configurations done by the phone service provider too. Normally the company’s in-house support will either need special training or a maintenance contract with experienced PBX technicians.

When it comes to hosted PBX vs traditional PBX, the hosted PBX services, however, are less involved and invasive. Many changes can be done through a web portal, such as adding new lines or making modifications to services. Also, changing locations can be seamless; in most cases simply unplug the phone and plug it in elsewhere. Everything is happening over the Internet, so physical location is irrelevant to the hosted PBX.

Features of Hosted PBX vs Traditional PBX

Features are often what make or break an enterprise-level PBX system. Most features that are found in traditional systems are also available in hosted systems. Voicemail to email or voicemail to text are popular features that allow voice messages to be automatically transcribed and delivered in text form for easy reception of messages.

Conferencing is crucial to almost any large business and often a place where traditional systems fail to be scalable or reliable enough. Cloud-based systems have infinite scalability and new conference lines can be set up in real-time with no advanced planning.

Some modern hosted PBX systems even come with call recording, call accounting, email clients and much more. These systems are all part of the same suite which means you can set an “Away” message in your IM client and your email, voicemail and other modes of communication will reflect the same message.

PBX vs VoIP

As you can see, in comparing hosted PBX vs VoIP, having a homogeneous medium of the Internet for all communication functions opens a whole world of interoperability and streamlined workflows. If your Internet service is reliable, a hosted PBX can work for almost any size organization. There are clear economic advantages to considering cloud systems. Most firms have found that taking the time to consider and invest in a hosted PBX system is worthwhile.