Hosted PBX: Telephony’s step-child has come of age

by Scott Kinka, Telecom Reseller Magazine, January 31st, 2009

Hosted PBX is always about to be the telephony product of the moment, but that moment never seems to arrive. Or is it is already here? A new group of carrier-class offerings provides a hosted option for businesses who require quality but value the off-site nature of the service model.

There’s no question that many hosted providers have earned the reputation as lower-cost yet lower-quality for gaining the advantages of VoIP. Early offerings were focused on replacing residential POTS and providing cheap long-distance.

Business VoIP offerings were eventually established which added PBX-like features. However, providers only shipped phones to customers, leaving them to self-configure through a web interface with little technical help. Customer satisfaction suffered. Couple this delivery method with what I call BYOB (bring your own bandwidth) and it’s no wonder the hosted PBX industry has suffered from a bad reputation.

So what’s changed? No more BYOB. While VoIP over broadband might work well in a home or small office, it’s not dependable as a means for carrier-class voice. The relative size of a VoIP call is small (30-100Kbps) but is highly-susceptible to packet loss, latency and jitter, which cannot be controlled over the Internet.

Carrier-class providers, however, are delivering services over their own network or purchasing MPLS-based T1 services between their platforms and the customer. They can now provide a POTS-like experience with QOS ensured. With the PBX and access provided by the same party, finger-pointing can be reduced or eliminated.

For larger and multi-site organizations this quality-assured method increases the customer’s disaster recovery readiness. Premise-based services, regardless of manufacturer, are susceptible to complete outages due to access failure, router failure, line cut, card failure and more. Hosted services will remain up, however, even if connectivity to the location is compromised. While some may not be able to use their phones, inbound calls will not be met with a busy-signal.

Instead the auto-attendant will answer, and callers will be directed to voicemail or forwarded to users’ cellphones. With creative phone registration providers have been able to manage failover to alternative IP connections or POTS lines, generally considered one of the primary advantages of an on-site PBX.

Hosted providers have largely approached their configuration work with a one-size-fits-most mentality. This has changed as the industry has matured. The right provider will offer similar implementation services as a premise-based interconnect.

The inherent value propositions of the hosted solution can finally be realized. Lower total cost of ownership, reduced training, capital expenditure avoidance, scalability and green technology updates are now available with on-premise quality, disaster recovery and satisfaction.

So has the moment come for a hosted solution? Many businesses are starting to believe so.

Originally appearing on TelecomReseller.com