Some thoughts on the two business phone system technologies that you, as a small business owner, will be making a choice on.

There are VOIP PBX Systems like Microsoft Response Point IP PBX, the new kid on the block, designed to wow you with some great features. For the convenience of following round 1 of this boxing match, you could replace the Microsoft Response Point phone system with the myriad other IP Pbx systems like the Fonality PBXtra, TrixBox, Asterisk, Talkswitch and numerous hosted IP Pbx solutions out there.

And there are traditional business phone systems like the latest generation, TDA series, of the old and faithful, Panasonic Business Phone System. Again, you can picture Nortel, Avaya, Samsung, NEC, Toshiba phone systems here, since they all represent the same traditional telephone systems which have the latest generation IP or Hybrid IP offerings. New businesses, like yours, which are in the growth mode and are looking to invest money in a professional business phone system having intercom, paging, music-on-hold, speed dialling, multi-line capability, voice-mail boxes, auto-attendant, customised company greetings and so on.

Your business is attracting new customers, phone line sare constantly busy, you need to add more lines from the telephone company, you need to shed off your old two-line phones for a full featured phone system.

It will be surprising to note what some small business owners think that by getting a multi-line business phone system, they will automatically get the hunting features allowing them to receive more calls. If Line 1 is busy, it will automatically go to Line 2 , Line 3 , Line 4 and so on. They do not realize that a business phone system only extends the functionality of your 2 Line or 4 Line phone. If you have a 2 Line or 4 Line phone, you also need 2 or 4 Lines from the phone company to have multi-line call hunting.

A business phone system will NOT majically give you unlimited lines with hunting capability. You will still need to order as many lines from your friendly neighbourhood phone company.

Coming back to my main point of this post…

What are the key features that drive you to choose an IP PBX System and not the traditional phone system?

You would probably agree on one or more of the following :

- Why, it’s VOIP! Voice over internet technology.

- It’s state-of-the-art technology, the latest and the greatest

- VOIP means Free Long Distance, free calling, lower bills.

- The IP PBX phone system is in expensive

- VOIP phone lines are cheap

- I can set it up myself. It connects into the same network as my computers. No additional cabling required.

- I can program the system myself with easy web interface and menu selection

- the system has unlimited expansion capability. No more expensive upgrades. Just buy new handsets/phones and hook them up.

- I can move my phone around and swap with other phones in the office easily, and make admin changes to users and mailboxes

- I can take my phone out of the office and simply connect it to any internet connection across the world and use it as if I was still in the office. Wow, I can be a remote worker. Telecommute.

That’s a great feature list. No doubt.

Now lets look closely at each one of them…in my next post.

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