One thing that is sometimes overlooked when shopping for a new phone system is how important having the right type of circuit is. There have never been more options for business phone service than there are now, and having the right phone service plays an important role in how efficient and cost effective your communications are. Even if you are not considering purchasing a new phone system, I would recommend shopping your phone service every couple of years.Here are some examples of the products being offered:
Analog Phone Lines: Even though more and more voice traffic is shifting to VOIP, the telco providers still have a lot of companies using analog phone lines. They are very affordable, call quality is excellent, and they are very reliable. For a small business with five or six lines and basic communications needs, analog lines are a perfectly good choice.
PRI: A PRI is a digital circuit. A full PRI is 24 channels. One channel is used for caller ID so the other 23 are available for incoming and outgoing calls. When you have over a certain number of analog lines a PRI becomes more affordable. With a PRI you can have DID (Direct Inward Dialing) Numbers so that each person in the company can have their own phone line and be called directly without having to go through an attendant or be routed through voice mail. Cell phone integration, sometimes referred to as "twinning" requires a PRI as well.
SIP: Sip lines or "trunks" are VOIP lines. They have been around for about five years now. I have not seen a big push for SIP trunks in my region. I'm not sure why, but I think the telco companies are reluctant to push the technology because it takes away from their highly profitable analog phone lines and PRI circuits. I think that the main advantage of SIP is cost with a line being about $20 per month. Like a PRI you can do DID and cell phone "twinning" on SIP trunks.
Cable Phone Lines: I have noticed that Cable companies have become very aggressive going after the business phone line market. I deal with a lot of small businesses and they are switching because of the cost savings over using analog lines and dsl. They usually get much faster internet speeds with cable along with the savings. Cable companies do an "analog" handoff so that the lines will work with your old traditional pbx or key system. You do not need a VOIP phone system to use Cable phone lines. They also sell PRI Circuits.
Flex Circuits: One thing that the major carriers like Verizon, XO, Paetec etc. are selling is what is called "flex circuits". What they do with these circuits is combine your voice and data into one circuit. They will guarantee a certain amount of bandwidth for your voice traffic and when the voice lines are not in use, the bandwidth will be freed up for faster internet speed. They will deliver your voice lines as an analog handoff or PRI to your PBX.
Shopping your phone service is easier than you think. All you have to do is give a copy of your bill to one of the carriers and they will analyze it to tell you how you can save money and or provide you with a better product for the same price. Most of the time when I shop a Customer's service, I can save them an average of about 20%. As a full service telephone company, we do cutovers all the time when Customers switch from one carrier to another. For the most part it is a pain free procedure. It's easy to port your phone numbers over and there is very little downtime in the process.
If you have any questions about whether you have the right type of phone service for you business, feel free to give me a call.
Adam Stern
www.absphones.com
astern@absphones.com
410-239-2227
