sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Other Telephones & Systems Anyone have any Hosted PBX comments

whats good and whats bad. will this end the interconnect business?

It's been around for a while. Centrex was hosted from the local Bell (or what have ya) back in the 90's.

Here's the deal. I assume you mean the new hosted IP pbx's offered by companies now. YOu have to buy the Router, Switch, and phones. Generally you get a 1 year contract where they provide a t1...and own the numbers and you pay a set charge per phone per month. No matter how you slice it I cannot see how it's a good investment. First, if you decide to cut your contract after a year...you won't have a working phone system and will probably lose you telephone numbers. The monthly charges if you add them up you can invest in some pretty damn nice phone equipment and actually own it at some point. So far unless you have some REAL special needs I just don't see it.

Yeah, what HE said.

See this thread. Basically the same question with lots of feedback.
https://www.sundance-communications.com/forum/Forum30/HTML/000035.html

[This message has been edited by aweaver (edited August 19, 2005).]

"will this end the interconnect business?"

I would say no, but I believe it will change the interconnect business significantly. Many of them will (and already have) become resellers of these types of services. If done correctly with QoS (like us )there are to many advantages and savings to small businesses. You are already seeing it main stream on both coasts.

The cities I have seen with the largest penetration so far are:

San Francisco
New York
Dallas

Many times these cities are the test bed for new technology before it rolls to the rest of us. One thing is for certain, this industry is growing and very fast. No one can deny that.

Here is a link to a marjet study from IDC that predicts a 282% compound annual growth rate through 2008.

www.sbc.com/Common/files/pdf/HIPCS.pdf

That my friends is growth.