The Best Business VoIP Providers and Cloud PBX Services of 2022

Why Is Telephony Yet a Business Must-Have?

An increasing number of employees today prefer to conduct their business communications over digital means such equally social media and live chat applications. However, the phone remains a vital device in the workplace despite this trend. About companies today are using Vocalism-over-IP (VoIP) services and for various reasons. One reason is that VoIP costs less than getting set up through a standard phone provider. A 2d reason is that VoIP setups gives companies a much more robust feature set. In fact, the magic of VoIP service allows fifty-fifty small companies to do things that usually only large organizations are able to do, such every bit offer machine attendants, faxing, voicemail, more than. VoIP even at present offers things such equally voicemail-to-text and multi-device softphones. Having all of your telephony operations happening through VoIP also means that every slice of your communications is stored as data and tin be easily mined.

This is peculiarly valuable when you lot're talking virtually many calls as data from those calls can be analyzed and then parsed to any front-end or back-end business concern app. This is possible because, by moving to VoIP, you lot're essentially converting your entire phone system to software—and software systems can integrated with one another. This means your phone organization now becomes part and packet of your customer relationship management (CRM), for example.

Some folks have espoused a telephone-less working environment, but a cardinal indicator that the phone is still a must-take is the helpdesk manufacture. According to multiple vendors of helpdesk and IT service desk-bound software, their customers written report that the phone is yet the most popular method for their users to reach out for support, even when email, social media, and live chat options are enabled. They also study that this tendency isn't likely to change anytime soon, as shown in the infographic beneath.

The Best Business VoIP Solutions - The Failsafe Phone

Source: Zendesk

But even with this realization, you take a multitude of choices. Larger businesses need to select between on-premises Private Branch Exchange (PBX) hardware and hosted solutions, weighing their potential benefits (i.e., advanced functionality and total customizability) against associated costs. Modest to midsize businesses (SMBs) demand to make that same selection, but besides weigh their current needs and budget against what they expect those needs to get in the future. As telephony technology continues to evolve and integrate with other types of software, especially cloud services, CRM and marketing automation solutions in particular volition become key. For many, the cost of a traditional PBX organisation may not only exist beyond the reach of their current operating upkeep but may also non make much long-term sense.

Furthermore, when you're starting or running a small business organisation, you need to exist devoting the majority of your time and efforts into your core concern to succeed. Wasting fourth dimension on purchasing, implementing, and managing infrastructure can be extremely costly, both in capital outlay and time removed from building the business organization.

Traditionally, small businesses would rely on a local telco for basic business organisation phone needs, using something like a CENTREX system. Only today, those systems have get antiquated and do not mesh well with the needs of a modern business—especially for emerging trends such as integrating mobile phones, enterprise social networking, texting, leveraging call heart and telephone call queuing software, web video conferencing or dozens of other features that tin streamline processes, promote collaboration, and advance growth.

Fortunately, there are many more options available today in hosted PBX solutions that bring the features and reliability of an enterprise-level PBX to SMBs. To provide a guide to these solutions, we accept pulled together eight of the leading hosted PBX solutions representing a range of features and types: 8x8 Virtual Office Pro, Citrix Grasshopper, Dialpad, Fonality Hosted PBX, Microsoft Skype for Business Online, RingCentral Office (for Business), ShoreTel Connect Cloud, and Vonage Business organization.

Nosotros also attempted to include VoIP solution provider Nextiva in this roundup, but oddly, the company didn't respond to any of several attempts at contact. This was more than a little puzzling for a company that ostensibly specializes in business communications.

Modern Features of Business Phone Systems

The eight VoIP solutions we did examination encompass a broad range of features and options. Some, such every bit Fonality Hosted PBX and RingCentral Office (for Business), are geared towards larger businesses, and offering high-terminate enterprise features, only they offer rates that fit into SMB budgets. Others, such as Citrix Grasshopper, are very much geared towards the smaller end of the SMB marketplace and provide the nuts of a mod telephone system—without the need for any on-premises equipment or fifty-fifty fixed telephone lines and, though limited in features, are extremely cost-constructive.

On the higher end of this space, hosted PBX providers such as RingCentral Role and Fonality Hosted PBX will generally require some on-bounds hardware such as specific desk and cordless VoIP phones preconfigured to work with the hosted PBX service. These phones connect to the provider over the internet and function exactly as you would imagine a business phone should, but the telephone organization running those phones is located in the deject rather than the telco cupboard in the basement. Self-service direction and configuration of these systems generally occurs through a spider web-based portal, and can include a long list of potential features. For SMBs, the most unremarkably important features you should be because include:

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, "Press 1 for accounting, press 2 for the White House..."
Phone call queuing, generally used in phone call centers, where systems like this distribute incoming calls to specific recipients based on what the caller wants, extensions dialed, or other criteria.
Hold music or audio, which should have non only a expert list of options offered by the service, but also the ability for you to upload custom music or audio.
Extension assignments, meaning an administrator on your side of the relationship should be able to assign internal extensions as desired.
Number porting so y'all can employ your current business telephone number with the new service (important for folks who pay for 800, 888 or similar lines).
Call recording so you lot can use phone experiences for training, sales, and marketing intelligence purposes.
Voicemail to email transcription and then your employees can read or play their voicemail from wherever they receive electronic mail.
and a whole lot more, read on.

In some cases, providers will offer on-bounds Public Switched Phone Network (PSTN) connectivity through hardware that is continued to analog or digital phone lines from the local telco, and connected to the business organization network. This allows a concern to continue to use local phone lines with their hosted PBX solution and may be of significant benefit to businesses that have a requirement to maintain local wired lines.

Furthermore, about (if not all) providers too offer smartphone integration with custom and third-party apps, like CRM systems that can extend the phone system beyond just basic vocalization communication. Such integrations tin can also allow users to transfer calls to and from their mobile telephone, identify and receive calls from their personal telephone (that appear to be coming from the business organization), and collaborate with colleagues and customers via phonation and text.

The Right Internet Connection

Well-nigh of these VoIP solutions will require stable and consistent cyberspace connectivity at every location where the wired phones are to be used. In many cases, standard business-course internet service with suitable bandwidth will suffice, though the apply of Quality of Service (QoS) configuration on a business-course net router may be necessary to prioritize vocalism traffic over other internet traffic in order to maintain good call quality. Some hosted PBX providers offer assistance with this type of configuration on existing customer hardware, assuming that hardware can support QoS configuration. Other providers volition sell a specific slice of network hardware with the proper QoS configuration for the business to install that volition ensure that telephone call quality is prioritized.

Either mode, the quality and functionality of a hosted PBX with VoIP service will only be as good as the internet service at the business location. If this service is not sufficient, then a VoIP solution may not exist possible. Some hosted PBX providers do offering defended circuits that tin can be installed to direct connect the business to the provider, but those are generally quite costly. Fortunately, there are other ways to utilise hosted PBX solutions without requiring internet-connected phones.

Some providers, such as Citrix Grasshopper, offer a solution that doesn't use VoIP at all. They are essentially but simple PBXes that consider existing phone lines to be extensions and route calls that way. For instance, you lot might have a primary number that delivers callers to an IVR system and, when the caller dials an extension or selects a destination such as "Sales" or "Support," the hosted PBX calls an existing landline or mobile number and connects the two calls. The caller is unaware that they have connected to a completely unlike phone number, as the system looks and functions similar an in-business firm PBX with phone call forwarding, transfer, hold music, IVR, and and then forth.

The extensions in this case could be Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) lines, mobile phones, or even VoIP phones through a different provider. All the hosted PBX cares about is that, when a certain extension is selected, a call is placed to the phone number assigned to that extension. This sounds bones, simply it's a tried-and-true technology that can make businesses of any size and budget expect as if they are using enterprise-class phone software—without the need to invest in heavy-duty PBX solutions or dedicated desktop phone hardware.

Placing outbound calls with a organisation like this is typically done by start registering a specific phone with the provider for outbound calling, and so dialing a specific number to then identify an outbound telephone call to the desired number. This method is fabricated far simpler by using a smartphone with the provider app to place outbound calls.

Optimize Your Network

In improver to making sure your internet service can handle your VoIP traffic, you lot also need to make certain your local area network (LAN) tin handle it. What makes it catchy is that if you lot simply driblet VoIP onto your network, that traffic will go candy the aforementioned as any other traffic running across your LAN, like your shared bookkeeping application or those xx gigabytes worth of files your assistant merely stored in the cloud. The trouble in that location is that VoIP traffic is much more than sensitive to network bumps and potholes than virtually general office traffic. That translates to the sound breaking up or cutting out entirely, difficulty connecting over Wi-Fi, or (worst case) dropped and lost calls. Fortunately, most of the providers reviewed hither have engineering staff that volition contact you equally function of your setup process to help your IT staffers test and optimize your network prior to deploying their solutions. That's definitely something we recommend, merely there are steps you tin can take at present to prep your LAN for VoIP and make the deployment process that much easier.

Sympathize QoS: Quality of Service is the primary mechanism for keeping VoIP traffic flowing smoothly. It prioritizes specific traffic on your LAN ensuring that sure streams (in this case the VoIP traffic) get priority and always accept a certain pct of the overall pipe bachelor to them.
Codecs: Have your Information technology staff familiarize themselves with the codecs being used by the VoIP system you're considering purchasing. Usually you lot'll have options, meaning multiple codecs to choose from. Testing these out during your evaluation flow will let you lot selection the best codec for your environment.
Network Monitoring Tools: If y'all've got a LAN with more 10 users, then you've likely hired at to the lowest degree 1 Information technology staffer and that person is using some kind of tool to monitor that network, including not just the health of connected devices, just also the kinds of traffic flowing over it. Prior to deploying your VoIP organization, information technology'south a skillful idea to make certain the tools currently being employed tin as well effectively monitor and manage VoIP traffic using common direction protocols like SNMP or outright packet sniffing.

Once you've engaged with a VoIP provider, their engineers will aid you determine the overall service grade of your network (wait at that equally your network's basic "VoIP readiness factor") and how to tweak their service to run effectively over your infrastructure. If information technology turns out y'all need to upgrade some of your local networking infrastructure, this procedure will determine that, too, so await for it to complete before dropping any dollars on new routers or switches.

What Is SIP?

SIP stands for Session Initiated Protocol, and you lot'll crash-land into it a lot when evaluating solutions or testing your network for VoIP readiness. It's of import because, for the well-nigh part, it'southward the de facto standard you'll exist using every time you have a VoIP conversation. When VoIP first entered the scene, equipment manufacturers and software developers, especially for the largest enterprise players like Cisco or Nortel, developed their ain proprietary protocol standards. They did this in part considering information technology was easier, simply as well partly to go along customers "trapped" on their systems.

Once you were up and running on a proprietary VoIP protocol, switching providers meant a consummate "rip and supercede" where both hardware and software would have to exist switched out. This not only drove up costs, but as well meant customers would lose their investment in the previous solution. As VoIP grew in popularity, small vendors edifice cheaper and more easily managed solutions began settling on SIP every bit the most oft-used protocol assuasive easier communication betwixt systems. However other VoIP protocols still be, with mayhap the second-nearly popular protocol being H.232.

What makes SIP so popular is not but that information technology's deep and flexible, but also because information technology was purpose-built to engage in multimedia (meaning not simply audio but besides video and even text) communications over TCP/IP networks. For VoIP calls, SIP tin can gear up calls using a number of IP-related protocols, including the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), among others. But it can also handle other functions, including session setup (initiating a call at the target endpoint—the telephone you lot're calling), presence management (giving an indicator of whether a user is "available," "away," etc.), location direction (target registration), call monitoring, and more than. Despite all that capability, SIP is simple compared to others VoIP protocols primarily because it's text-based and built on a uncomplicated request/response model, and is over very like to both HTTP and SNMP. Yet, information technology's still capable of handling the most complex operations of concern-grade PBXes.

SIP is built to piece of work on a peer-to-peer (meaning reckoner to computer) ground. In SIP-speak, the two points are chosen the "user-agent client" and the "user-agent server." Remember that those are swappable, pregnant that unlike other client-server protocols where the client is always the client and the server is always the server. In SIP, the endpoint making the call is the user-amanuensis client initiating the traffic and endpoint receiving the phone call is the user-amanuensis server receiving the call. If the call order is reversed, the customer-server classification is reversed besides. That adds a lot of flexibility, only it too means every endpoint needs to be able to perform both roles—server and customer.

In that location's a long list of additional network elements to a full SIP solution, only two important ones are the proxy server and the gateway. The proxy sever helps lighten the functional requirements of SIP endpoints. Information technology besides acts as both client and server, but it adds functionality around call routing and policy-based management. SIP gateways are the closest analogy to an old-way PBX network in that they can handle the routing and connectivity requirements for connecting SIP calls to other networks. Typically, the advanced features of the VoIP vendors we review here are largely based on the proprietary management technology they build into their proxy servers and gateways. By offering VoIP solutions where these (and more) elements of a SIP solution are hosted in the deject, the providers reviewed here accept more flexibility in edifice advanced features since they have more control over deployment and reliability.

Await for Extended Functionality

Some hosted PBX providers, such as Fonality, too offer extended services such as call center features. These tin can be used to design intricate and complex call routing and call management scenarios for important queues, such as sales and support with extensive queue and time-to-answer service-level agreement (SLA) monitoring and reporting capabilities. Some also offer voicemail transcription, fax services, and other communication integrations such as the ability to integrate a CRM awarding with the PBX to enable one-click outbound calling and retrieval of customer records or other information when a call comes into the system.

Just about anything you lot can picture a concern needing from a phone system can be delivered past a hosted PBX solution—and generally at a cheaper price than purchasing and maintaining your own on-bounds PBX. It'due south but a matter of selecting the correct solution for your concern.

Pros: A network with infrastructure in Europe, the U.s.a., and Asia. Very deep characteristic set of VoIP and business communication capabilities. New AI integrations. An improved user interface makes RingCentral slightly more than intuitive.

Cons: Hardware will cost you extra. The workflow is not equally intuitive as it should be, mostly considering there's no workaround to the wizards.

Bottom Line: A long-standing Editors' Choice pick, RingCentral Office is what most companies expect from a full-featured cloud PBX solution. The platform includes everything from bogus intelligence (AI) integration to capabilities like faxing, video conferencing, and custom application integration, as well.

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Pros: Impressive administrative features and calling functionality. Wide range of features. Intuitive mobile apps. Amend API integration than previous version.

Cons: Add-on features come at a cost. Conferencing isn't included.

Bottom Line: Vonage Concern Deject is Vonage's beefed-upwardly Vocalization-over-IP (VoIP) service that targets small to midsize businesses (SMBs). Given its robust offering of features and management capabilities, you should definitely consider information technology, but be enlightened of its potential security compromises.

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Pros: Promises 99.999 pct uptime with a financially backed service-level agreement. Management of Microsoft Function 365 and hosted mail possible from improved Admin console. Offers a deep and evolving feature set.

Cons: Heavy focus on Microsoft for ancillary services. But allows phone numbers in the US and Canada.

Lesser Line: Intermedia was already a PCMag Editors' Choice pick, but its Unite platform makes information technology an fifty-fifty stronger choice for businesses seeking a reliable cloud PBX with a generous number of features.

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Pros: Friendly, flexible pricing. Plenty of standard features. Solid mobile and desktop capability with easy setup.

Cons: Desktop app has stability issues and a not-intuitive design. Meetings features are hard to observe and employ.

Bottom Line: 8x8 X Series replaces the previous 8x8 Virtual Office platform with a new dorsum end that allows for expanded features and unified communications (UC) management across multiple channels.

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Pros: Built-in team collaboration. Smashing mobile app. Predictive contacts search. Comprehensive VoIP, calling, messaging, and video chat features. Long list of bachelor CRM integrations.

Cons: Comparatively loftier per-user pricing. No speech communication-to-text transcription.

Bottom Line: While it's on the expensive side, the Mitel MiCloud Business unified communications platform wins our Editors' Choice award with first-class features, a nice play on mobility, and a long listing of integrations.

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Pros: Plenty of deep call routing and telephone call center features. I-on-1 assisted setup. Very complete head-upwardly display, unified communications awarding.

Cons: Might be too complicated and expensive for a pocket-sized business that just needs uncomplicated PBX functionality.

Bottom Line: NetFortris Fonality receives a well-earned Editors' Selection amongst our VoIP competitors because this business-oriented offer has it all. From solid functioning to an splendid selection of hardware options, Fonality is a neat pick.

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Pros: Extremely fast and like shooting fish in a barrel setup. Competitive toll. Covers the basics of a business telephone arrangement, including basic phone call routing/IVR, voicemail, and faxing.

Cons: Requires existing landlines or mobile phones. Express features beyond the basics.

Bottom Line: Grasshopper is aimed at minor to midsize businesses (SMB). In that space, information technology'due south a solid contender with a adept feature set up, solid mobility support, and a decent toll betoken, too.

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Pros: Very easy to fix and manage. Scales upward or down with minimal effort. Good support for both Android and iOS mobile devices.

Cons: Default settings on mobile app typically need adjusting. Some features missing and support for others is express.

Bottom Line: Dialpad is a glimpse of what the hereafter of pocket-size business communications volition probably look similar. Instead of worrying about hardware, this service focuses on software, mobility, and integrating with as many third-party applications every bit possible.

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Pros: Extensive features including call queuing, IVR, conferencing, and functional Android and iOS customer. Company offers its ain phones designed for integration with the service. Outlook and Salesforce plug-ins and extensible API.

Cons: Limited number of phones. Limited number of preconfigured app integrations. Company doesn't reveal network backbone information. Basic conferencing feature set.

Bottom Line: Digium Switchvox offers a solid gear up of features and value for those looking for a provider that offers both hardware phones and VoIP PBX calling services.

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