Hosted voice is the best solution for your business

The ISDN switch off is happening whether we like it or not, so if your business currently uses traditional ‘landline’ telephony, sooner or later you’ll have to switch to an all-IP (internet based) alternative.

The sooner you do, the sooner you can start benefiting from this major leap in technology. Internet-based communications are more flexible, scalable and – in many cases – cost-effective than traditional alternatives.

That’s why many businesses are choosing to upgrade their telephony well ahead of 2025, which is when the ISDN network is officially turned off.

Most of them are choosing to replace their traditional systems with hosted voice, which places all their telephony infrastructure in the cloud. In the rest of this article we’ll explain why hosted voice is becoming the communications solution of choice for small and medium sized businesses.

The home working revolution

Part of the reason for the popularity of hosted voice can be found in the rise of remote working. During pandemic lockdowns, many of us worked from home. As offices reopen, many businesses are offering staff the option of hybrid work, which means they spend some of the time in the office and some working remotely.

This new breed of nomadic employees needs to be able to make and take professional business calls from wherever they happen to be. Staff need to be able to communicate smoothly with customers and with each other, and collaborate as easily at home as they can in the office.

That’s making businesses adopt new technologies that facilitate the switch to hybrid working, and hosted voice is chief among them. At the very top of its list of benefits, hosted telephony is the perfect solution for mobile staff.

Because all the infrastructure is in the cloud, the hosted voice service and all its features are available anywhere, and on any device. All it takes to access them is an internet connection.

That makes it an entirely flexible solution. Hosted voice services tend to come with softphones and mobile apps, so you can make and take calls from your laptop, desktop, smartphone or tablet. If you’re not at your desk, the service can route a call to your personal smartphone. In other words, never miss an important customer contact again.

Remote collaboration

Hosted voice services often also come with a range of powerful call handling features as standard, like call routing and voicemail to email. And if you choose a Hosted Unified Communications (HUC) solution, you get a whole lot more besides.

HUC services effectively give you a full suite of communication and collaboration services in one convenient package.

With HUC, employees can make and receive audio and video calls, instant messages and emails, and schedule meetings and conferences. They can share screens and transfer files. In short, they can communicate and collaborate easily, from anywhere.

The many benefits of hosted voice

The ease with which it facilitates remote communication and collaboration is often what draws businesses to a hosted voice service. But that’s far from the only benefit.

Hosted voice is ideal for businesses that are growing, moving or experiencing seasonal spikes in activity, because it’s so easy to scale. Adding new users (or new features) to a hosted voice solution takes little more than a couple of clicks of an administrator’s mouse. When the spike in activity is over, you can scale the service down again just as easily.

That makes the service flexible, and also highly cost-effective. You never have to invest in capacity you don’t use. Per-use-per-month payment models also ensure that you only pay for what you need, and never for what you don’t.

And talking of money, hosted voice also means you don’t have the expense and hassle of hosting, maintaining and securing on-site equipment. Your telephony is now a software service, with the infrastructure that runs it out of sight, out of mind, and somebody else’s problem.

Hosted voice future-proofs your business

Another stand out advantage of hosted voice is that it’s not a static service. Your provider will update it as and when new features appear, so you’ll always be using the latest and most secure version. When a great new feature emerges, you won’t have to buy a whole new system. You can just add it to the service you have.

As we’ve seen, it can also meet all your communications needs in one package, combining voice, video, text and collaboration tools in a way that increases efficiency and minimises your administrative burden. You only deal with one provider, and pay one invoice, for an entire suite of tools and applications.

Compared to the creaking old ISDN network, hosted voice also offers great audio and video quality and a high level of reliability. It’s worth remembering that, because voice data travels across the internet, your connectivity is an important consideration here. Switching from copper to fibre broadband is one way to ensure you have the speed and bandwidth you need for any new all-IP telephony service.

Routing your calls through your internet connection may effect network performance.
Download our 10-minute guide to the ISDN switch off to learn more.

Why choose ConnectaPhone?

As we’ve seen, every business can benefit from upgrading to hosted voice, and at ConnectaPhone we have years of experience in helping you make the transition.

We’re specialists in helping small businesses switch suppliers and services, and making sure they have the best deal available.

We take a consultative approach. That means we won’t sell you a product. We’ll get to know your business in detail and design a solution that precisely meets your needs. We’ll then support you through every stage of the transition.

The ISDN switch off is happening in 2025, but BT will stop selling new ISDN lines a lot sooner than that. In effect, the ageing technology is already being phased out. It’s time to upgrade to the benefits of cloud-based communications.

To learn more about your communications and connectivity options and what ConnectaPhone can do for you, please get in touch with our friendly team on 01732 449 000 or book a call.