Cloud (Hosted) Voice Over IP
Phone System Solution Explained

In this first podcast Bruce Gibbs, President of ServiceMark, will expand on the details of the Cloud (Hosted) Voice Over IP Phone System Solution.

Traditional landlines utilizing copper cabling are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Businesses who are contemplating a telephone system and/or phone service change should avoid traditional phone service over copper cables as it has become obsolete for several reasons, including cost. Current cutting-edge phone system solutions and service are the way to go. These cutting-edge solutions almost always involve Voice Over IP (VoIP) technology.

So, the question is no longer “is VoIP right for my business?”. The question is instead “what configuration of VoIP is most cost effective and the best fit for my business?”.

In the Cloud (hosted) VoIP Phone System Solution illustrated in this podcast, there is no traditional phone company that is a part of the phone system and service solution.  This diagram illustrates the public internet as the means of connectivity to a cloud telephone system solution offered by Univerge Blue Cloud Services by NEC.  The features and programming of the telephone system applications resides in a data center, in NEC’s “cloud”.  There is not a business telephone system that resides in the customer’s building illustrated by the darker shaded area at the bottom of the diagram.   In this scenario, hardware on the customer’s premises is limited to a Router/Firewall, data switch(es), and VoIP phones.

For a successful deployment, it’s important to address points of failure that can cause poor phone quality and internet security breaches:

  • The company’s data switch(es) should provide Power over Ethernet (PoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) to insure quality phone calls.
  • The company’s router/firewall is also important regarding the quality of phone calls and for protection to guard against data security breaches which have substantially increased in recent years.
  • The internet connection itself is also a potential weak link or point of failure because not all internet connections are equally reliable to facilitate quality phone calls.  ServiceMark Telecom goes way beyond conducting a simple internet speed and ping test which only measures the quality during a snapshot in time.  ServiceMark installs a diagnostic tool that simulates over 1,000 phone calls through NEC’s Cloud Services during a minimum one-week test.  If there was any degradation of any of the over 1,000 simultaneous phone calls, ServiceMark will address the problem before the implementation of a cloud-based VoIP solution.  This has resulted in “0” intermitted call quality problems with any of our cloud-based customers!

A Cloud (Hosted) VoIP Solution has proven to be the best fit for the following types of ServiceMark customers:

  • Customers with less than 5 phones.
  • Customers with multiple locations that wish to be tied into one phone system, especially if most of the multiple locations are small offices.
  • Customers that wish to deploy a full featured phone extension that resides on smart phones for mobile workers.
  • Call centers (or contact centers) that are not only making and receiving phone calls, but also incorporate other forms of communication such as chat, email, texting, and social media.

In order to determine which VoIP solution is the “best fit” and most cost effective for a business, ServiceMark has developed a Total Cost of Ownership tool, which compares multiple solutions, and calculates the total cost of ownership over 3, 5, 7, and 10 years. It’s common to compare a Cloud (Hosted) VoIP Phone System Solution to an On-Premise VoIP Phone System Solution Connected to VoIP “SIP Trunks”.

Businesses can call ServiceMark at 816-478-2000 or request a no-cost business phone system consultation by submitting the form on the right.

We take the time to educate business owners on multiple business phone system solution options, helping them determine, through the total cost of phone system ownership calculations, which option is most cost effective and the best fit for their business, employees and customers.

FINANCING FOR A NEW OR UPGRADED 
BUSINESS TELEPHONE SYSTEM

ServiceMark Telecom make it easy for business owners to stay equipped with the latest business telephone system technology with easy and flexible financing options through Mid Continent Capital, a local company in the Kansas City area that has provided convenient financing for our customers for well over 20 years.

Whether the phone system is a VoIP Cloud Phone System Solution, or is a VoIP On-Premise Phone System Solution, both solutions will involve some hardware such as VoIP phones, and if needed, updating the firewall and data switches that need to be installed on the customer’s premises, all of these costs can be financed.