Unified Communications

Cloud Phone Systems

A cloud phone system runs your business calling from a provider's data centers instead of a phone switch in your closet. Desk phones, a laptop app and a mobile app all ring on the same number, and you pay for each user by the month instead of buying hardware up front.

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Coverage

Buyer's checklist

Eight questions that decide this purchase

Think these through before you buy. Answer what you can and your quote comes back faster. Skip what you cannot, and we will work through it with you.

01
How many people need a phone, and where do they work: one office, several, other countries, at home?
02
How many other seats do you have: conference rooms, reception desks, and shared phones in hallways, break rooms and warehouses?
03
Will you keep your desk phones, replace them, or move to headsets and apps? Not every older handset works on a new platform.
04
Do you want calling inside Microsoft Teams? If so, which Microsoft license do you own, and what is the fallback when Teams is unavailable?
05
What does the phone system have to connect to: your customer database, a line-of-business application, call recording, texting?
06
Which devices still run on copper lines, such as alarms, elevators, fax machines, paging and door phones?
07
Do you need a contact center with queues, reporting and outbound dialing, or only a receptionist and a few ring groups?
08
Which rules apply to you: HIPAA, PCI, SOC 2, or the emergency calling laws, Kari's Law and RAY BAUM'S Act, which require a 911 call to reach help directly and carry the caller's location?

More on what it is

The industry name is UCaaS, unified communications as a service, because calling usually arrives with video meetings, chat and texting in one subscription. The box it replaces is a PBX, the on-site switch that routes calls between extensions.

Here is how it works. Your phones and apps sign in to the provider's platform over your internet connection. The platform runs in more than one data center, so a failure in one place does not stop your calls, and it connects to the public telephone network so you can reach any number. Your existing numbers move with you through a process called porting. The features you expect are all there: an auto attendant to answer and route callers, ring groups, call park, forwarding to a cell phone.

Two things change when the switch leaves the closet. First, your calls now ride your data connection, so call quality is only as good as the network under it. That makes Business Connectivity and sometimes SD-WAN part of the same decision. Second, anything that still depends on a copper phone line needs its own plan. Alarm panels, elevator phones, fax machines and overhead paging do not move to a cloud phone system on their own. See Voice Lines and SIP Trunking and Hosted Fax.

Microsoft Teams deserves a paragraph because it causes the most confusion. Teams chat and meetings cannot call an outside phone number by themselves. Calling has to be added. One way, Direct Routing, uses a carrier's equipment to connect Teams to the phone network. Another, Operator Connect, lets a calling provider plug straight into the Teams dial pad with no extra hardware. Which one fits depends on the Microsoft license you already own, and either way you want a fallback for the day Teams is down.

You do not always have to replace everything at once. Some platforms sit on top of an existing on-site switch so you can modernize in stages.

Who needs it

Your phone switch is out of warranty, or the manufacturer has stopped supporting it.
You have several offices, or people working from home, and you want everyone on one system with the same features.
Your company already lives in Microsoft Teams and you want the phone inside it.
You have a customer-facing team that needs call queues and reporting.
You have to meet a named standard such as HIPAA, PCI or SOC 2, or the rules on emergency calling.

If your current system is supported, does what you need and nobody works remotely, there is no prize for moving early. The usual triggers are a renewal, an office move or a switch that is starting to fail.

Signs you need it

People working from home cannot transfer a call, see who is available or use the main number the way the office can.
A recent outage showed that one failed box or one cut line silences the whole company.
You have run out of capacity, or you are paying for one tool for calls, another for meetings and a third for chat.
Nobody can review a call for coaching or check call quality after a complaint.
The phone contract or the network contract underneath it comes up for renewal this year.

How IT Raven helps

Add Cloud Phone Systems to your quote list and tell us your seat counts, your sites and what you run today. A person takes that to the calling providers in our 500+ partner network and narrows the field on the things that actually disqualify a provider: the countries you operate in, the standard you have to meet, the way you want to use Teams, and whether your handsets can come along.

Because your calls will ride your network, we look at the connection at each site at the same time, and we put the copper-line devices on the list so the alarm panel is not discovered on cutover night.

Then we keep one thread through the order, the porting dates, handset delivery, training and the night the numbers move. If your customer-facing team has outgrown ring groups, we quote a Contact Center alongside. Afterward the same team handles new hires, office moves, trouble tickets and the next renewal.

Eight questions that decide this purchase

112 companies to compare

No company matches every box you checked

More on what it is

Who needs it

Signs you need it

How IT Raven helps

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