What is the long and short of Hosted VOIP? How does it work? What are the advantages?
I thought I would ask the experts :bow:
Thanks!

Don't............


PM sent.

PM Sent......

Hosted Voip is basically no more than a "High school science experiment"

Most hosted setup's I have seen are a total disarster........No quality of service, they just ship the phones to the customer to plug in themselfs....and hope for the best.......

to Do voip well, you need minimum T1 service, & new switches & routers @ the customer that have been configured for voice traffic.

It depends on the provider and the features you are looking for. If you have a P2P T1 or better back to the providers switch and they have implement QOS it should run pretty well.

Now, there's the feature issue. Most hosted VOIP systems act more Centrex like rather than a key system. Line appearance may or may not work, overhead paging can be interested etc. Really it all depends on the provider. A large number of hosted VOIP providers are strictly "Computer Geeks" and will have no idea how to implement many features that worked with your old XYZ system.

In my opinion VOIP is not bad, however your provider better know what they are doing.

Personally I enjoyed high-school. Got some of my best sleep there.

But as Aircom said, VoIP (much like TDM) requires someone who knows what they are doing.

As far as advantages or disadvantages of VoIP vs TDM you can search this board to your hearts content to find that info out.

What you probably wont find much on is hosted VoIP. So I'll list what I can think of for it's advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:
- Better Infrastructure (sitting in colo usually)
- Cheaper access to bulk lines (50+ phone lines)
- Should have better SLA (Colo can have redundant power grids, large-scale battery back-up with genpower, multiple Tier-1/Tier-2 bandwidth mix, etc)
- Should be able to handle larger number of distributed users with less issues
- Usually less vulnerable to storms and other things related to acts of god
- Usually maintained with back-up's and can quickly recover (should be within hours) from hardware failures
- Usually can offer interesting phone routing options in case of last-mile failure or what-not
- Hopefully cheaper long distance thanks to bulk-rate/carrier pricing

Disadvantages:
- High-Quality internet required for any sort of office locations (SDSL, T1, MPLS, etc) with multiple phones; Single-phones should be OK but your mileage may vary
- Cost more for brick-and-mortar offices (non-distributed phones)
- Not cost effective for smaller set-up's (sub 50-trunks I guess)
- It's a service; If the company you are with goes belly up or decides they no longer want your business you have to start over from scratch.

That's kind of what I can think of that relates specifically to Hosted VoIP vs In-House VoIP or TDM.

For a lot of lengthy (sometimes heated) discussions of VoIP vs TDM in general feel free to use the search function of this board. There was also a nice write-up by Ed that is stickied at the top of this forum as well.

Well said and pretty accurate on the size issue. Here in the sticks we have very few in that over 50+ lines size so it is not price effective.

If properly installed and equipped seems to be the big thing. Otherwise the outcome is like betting on who will win the SuperBowl in 2060.....

It's a service; If the company you are with goes belly up or decides they no longer want your business you have to start over from scratch.

I wonder how a small business gets their main number ported back if their current hosted provider goes under?

The number could be ported back just like if the provider was still in business. The FCC clarified the rules on ports where there is another layer of 'customer' (CLEC->VoIP Provider->Real Customer) so the real customer can port away their numbers. If they are no longer in business it makes the port a bit trickier but LNP can still be done even if the losing company doesn't concur with the port.

Makes sense, a lot of hosted providers I have seen are basically just reselling their voip trunks thru a large national backbone like L3. Technically L3 owns the end users numbers not the hosted company "providing" the service.

Kumba - I was thinking it HAS to depend on the provider and how good there service is. Who know's with any provider these days really. Hosted VOIP seems like a crap shoot to me. To depend only on the provider for a very essential part of your business seems very risky.
Thanks for everyone's info.

It always depends upon the provider and how good their service is. What difference does TDM or VoIP or Hosted VoIP matter when you cant get someone to pick up the phone and fix your problem?

I think the real problem is that you need to find a way to figure out who's service is good and who's is bad. For that I can only tell you the same thing everyone else will on this board. Ask for references. Ask people's opinions. See how many complains they have with the BBB (if they are registered). Do your homework. That doesn't change regardless of what you are doing.

The primary advantages of Hosted VoIP is primarily what I listed. I'm sure there are other's but I just cant think of more off the top of my head.

One problem I have with our voip service is I work in a 856 exchange. Sometimes I have to dial 856 or 1-856 or just the number. I find myself many times dialing 3 times before I find right pattern. I also have the same problem with 609 and 1-609. What a pain in the %&$.

Other problems is many more dropped calls vs. a digital phone system.

TK:

Area codes and exchanges are two completely different animals. The need for 1+ or not really has nothing to do with the system or service provider. It has to do with rate centers (billing zones) that are established by the incumbent LEC and your state's utility authority. These boundaries are currently managed by www.NANPA.com .

In most areas with overlay area codes (yours being 609/856), service providers require ten digits minimum. Others allow the calls to go through with eleven digits when the 1+ even if it isn't required. They just strip it away.

What you are encountering is indicative of the hosted IP service provider being located in a city far away. They may not have full comprehension of your local area's dialing plan, so they are sticking with the old 7/10/11 digit dialing plans and assuming that you will know which one is correct.

In these environments, it is usually up to the system installer to know the local dialing plan and program the system accordingly. I agree with you that it is confusing.

Now i found out who was snoring in class. And keeping me awake thanks Kumba

I have been offering Hosted for about 2 years now, still do TDM and IP systems. Works great but yes you have to know what you are doing.

Do you do your own hosting or are you privatily branded?

OK, I'm no phone guru, infact, I stumble thru the Inter-Tel DB programming to get things done.

We have an Axxess and are looking at upgrading our 35-40 users to a VOIP solution with the Inter-tel 5000. We got a quote for installation and call center reporting for less than $25k

my boss says that a friend of his said that a hosted soltuion is the way to go and a whole lot cheaper. Keep in mind that we average 15-20 calls at any time that are online.

not being a phone guru and not knowing anything about hosted solutions, I'm hoping to get some PRO Inter-Tel feedback that I can provide to my supervisor to continue with the 5000.

I would also be expecting an add of 10-20 headcount by th e end of 2010.

Please feel free to PM me.

Doing the math..at 32k per call(g.729)x 30 calls, you would need 960Kbps. That's closing in on a full T-1 or equivalent dedicated just for the phones. At ~80k per call(g.711) x 30 calls, you would need 2.4Mbps dedicated for the phones. Again, closing in on 2 bonded T-1's or equivalent worth of bandwidth. These are things that MUST be considered.

99% of the time hosted solutions are pure trash. I get three calls a week with the same story... some guy promised me the sun and the moon on hosted.. my t1 goes down every other day and my phone is reduced to the worlds most expensive paper weight.. hosted is great if you sell it.. it sucks if you buy it. You never own anything except the phones and eventually you will get pissed enough to give up and then you have to look for something that can run your polycom or cisco endpoints..... if you are a interconnect and you're even remotely considering hosted DON'T DO IT!.. the easy revenue from the carrier is sexy at first.. but you will get the pissed off end user call eventually and he's not going to blame the carrier.. he's got your neck to choke.... the ONLY time hosted really works for is those customers who are in a distributed system and only plan on using the phones in any given location for a temporary time (contract work).. great for commercial builders who move their offices every two years to a new job.. this technology can work great.. but you need a bulletproof T-1 and QoS to even begin to think about deploying something like this..

Hi PacketSmasher5000,

I am relatively new the hosted VoIP world and have a few questions about your statement/post. When you say "three calls per week...", who are the most common hosted providers you hear of? With the T-1 going down every other day, have they looked into a different solution for internet service?

One more question.

With the service going down so often, does their provider not forward calls to an alternate location when their internet is down?

Thanks :toast:

Our company does a lot of hosted VoIP. We have few problems with a T1 and a QOS router we install. Edgewater is our router of choice.

I don't think a T-1 going down all the time is a hosted VoIP issue. Even if you don't use VoIP, why would you put up with your T-1 going down all the time. Today the Internet is just as important to most businesses as their phone lines. Even the telco carriers are getting into Voip with their combined voice/data service.

When we install a system we make sure they have enough bandwidth, and we use our routers. In most cases we have very good call quality. If there is a problem we work to try and fix it as part of our service.

On the other side, I had 2 customers change their 6-8 business lines in their phone switch to Vontage over DSL. In both cases I put them back to analog POTS within a week.

Ditto.

We had a local spa change their dial-tone to Vonage. They had 7 lines, if memory serves. They had missed all calls for two days in a row and couldn't port one of the numbers for some odd reason. The call quality was flaky at best... only working well on 2 or three of the lines at a time.

The problem with Vonage and the like, is that they are not Business grade solutions. They were touting $650-700 savings per month for this customer. But at what costs, only being able to utilize 1/3rd of your lines to any standard of quality?

After about 3-5 weeks of back and forth with Vonage and many dropped, missed and poor quality calls... they were back to POTS and we were reconnecting to their Bell feeder.

50+ phone lines is a bit pricey for hosted VoIP services. You should choose wisely and select providers that can be scaled to suit business needs and avoid payment services which you are not using.