Premise Based vs. Hosted/Cloud Voice over IP (VoIP) Phone Systems

There are many ways to configure a voice over IP system, all with benefits and drawbacks. Make sure you are fully up-to-date on today's solutions and ask tough questions!

Remotely Hosted (Cloud) Solutions

A remotely hosted telephone system is basically a scenario where the main piece of the telephone system is not located onsite where the telephones are, but is located offsite at a service provider and the telephones communicate with the main unit through the internet. There may or may not be a small routing switch located onsite to facilitate basic operations, but the main system core is not.

Many companies boast about the benefits of remotely hosting voice over IP services. The simple truth is that the benefits of such a solution are only minor compared to the disadvantages and risks of network outages and problems. Here are a few things nobody will tell you about hosted solutions:

1. You own nothing and have zero equity in your current system. Do you get call records and call recordings when you move to a new system?
2. You have very little control over backups and call record storage.
3. You have zero options in selecting call plans and per-minute costs. You have to use the host provider or its partners until the end of time! This is how hosted solutions make their money, and it is good money for sure.
4. You have no real failover options. In a hosted scenario ALL phones have to reach the hosted PBX one way or the other. The only solution that incorporates full Quality of Service (QoS), is the one offered by the hosting provider. What happens if your QoS enabled provider T1s fail. All phone traffic now has to traverse non-QoS backup connections with the quality degradation it comes with. A premised based Viper system has a multitude of QoS enabled backup solutions.

Locally Hosted Solutions (premise based)

Locally hosted solutions is the traditional way to implement a telephone system where all the systems are located onsite and has direct connectivity to the telephones over a LAN. Remote locations can connect directly to the PBX over and there are normally failover solutions in place should the primary communication lines fail.

There was a time when remotely hosted solutions had merit, but over recent years arguments have evaporated one by one due to steadily increasing functionality and capabilities of onsite systems. This is especially the case for Viper VoIP^TM as it has adapted a whole new approach to servicing its clients with rapid response and custom feature development.

Why is Viper VoIP^TM Better ?

What if there was a system on the market that gives you:

• All the benefits touted by the remote hosting services
• All the benefits of having a system onsite
• A higher level of flexibility, stability and runs on non-proprietary hardware
• An easy way to manage system configurations and changes using drop down menus and easily understood web interfaces

You need to take a very close look at the arguments and try to read between the lines and hear what the competition is really saying.

Viper VoIP^TM has the capabilities of all other systems and can be configured just like all the others - you probably knew that but we had to say it. In addition to being able to connect into any telecom provider and be configured in every way possible, Viper VoIP^TM also has the added benefit of integrating multiple telecom vendors and connections that others are not capable of.

Why is this a benefit? Well, the more failover capabilities your phone system has, the less likely you are to some day be sitting without a dial tone. Imagine how frustrating it is if your T1 pipelines go down, but your "stupid" backup cable/optic connection is still working just fine. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to get a dial tone using the really inexpensive cable/optic?