Consider the telephone sitting on your desk. Even with the myriad ways people conduct business today, the telephone remains a central part of office communications. Phones in today’s business world perform a variety of tasks, from routing calls to recording messages to hosting conference calls. For the end user, the phone remains the simplest and best understood of all office communications equipment, placing and receiving calls in much the same manner as a generation ago.
You may be thinking that a phone is a phone is a phone, but the technology behind business phone systems goes far beyond the phone sitting on your desk. Once, businesses hosted their own phone systems, complete with office space dedicated to switching equipment. Nowadays, the prevalence of VoIP phones in the business marketplace has opened up the field for such services as hosted PBX.
What is a hosted PBX?
PBX is an acronym for Private Branch Exchange, which is a telephone exchange that serves a single organization. The “hosted” portion of the term indicates that all the equipment needed to link your internal phones to the outside world is housed, administered, and maintained elsewhere.
Hosted PBX is beneficial for small or mid-sized businesses for a number of reasons. First and foremost, hosted PBX eliminates the need for on-site hardware and software. Because the equipment is installed and maintained off-site, there is no need to employ an IT staff dedicated to maintaining the system. System management is performed by the hosting provider, as is maintenance of equipment.
Perhaps the best advantage of hosted PBX is the ability to scale the system to fit the needs of a business, with minimal expense and disruption. This is particularly helpful for businesses that need to set up or scale their operation quickly, and add or remove employees on a regular basis.
The cost for services such as these is often less than you might assume. Because hosted PBX is off-site and completely scalable, there is no additional cost for installation of equipment and your business pays per user. This can be particularly cost-efficient if your staff numbers fluctuate. Additionally, support for the system operates around the clock, so any issues that arise can be handled before they affect your business.
For a reliable, cost-efficient, adaptable solution to small and mid-sized business phone needs, hosted PBX may be the best plan for your business. It’s certainly worth taking a closer look.