This article is a continuation of last month's article about hosted phone service. Just to refresh your memory, a PBX is the phone system that provides funtions such as Call Transfer, Call Hold, Music on Hold, Calling between Extensions, and many more.
In that article last month I discussed the advantages and disadvantages of having your business phone system (the PBX) hosted in the "cloud". My opinion is that the PBX belongs on-prem in your office and not in the cloud, but of course there are advantages and disadvantages to an on-prem PBX too. In this article I will tell you why I think the PBX belongs on-prem. There are a few disadvantages to having the PBX on-prem and I will discuss those too.
If you are considering replacing your existing business phone system, or even if you're not, you should know that the new business phone systems which I offer, in most cases WILL save you money. That is THE advantage - end of story. Of course there are other advantages too, but the primary advantage and the one that most often grabs peoples attention is the amount of money they can save by switching to a new business phone system. The systems I offer are on-prem systems.
On-prem systems have up-front purchase costs associated with them and this can be viewed as a disadvantage. However, if you lease a new on-prem PBX the initial capital outlay can be spread over 1, 2 or 3 years and can be written off as a business expense. Your return on investment period will be based on these up-front purchase costs, but if the equipment is leased the savings associated with making the switch to Voice over IP technology can be realized immediately.
When considering the up-front purchase costs without leasing, the return on investment period for the systems I offer is typically 1 to 1.5 years. After that your costs include only the extremely low monthly costs paid to a Voice over IP service provider for phone service. How much you will save depends on several factors, but for my customers who have opted to use Voice over IP phone service the savings are significant when compared to the cost of service from one of the major phone service providers or a hosted phone service provider.
The advantage then of an on-prem PBX is that the total cost of ownership is less than a hosted PBX. Given that maintenance costs of an on-prem PBX can be and often are as little $0 per year for the systems I sell, the systems run for years without needing service or even a reboot, the on-prem PBX offers a wealth of feature/benefits and the monthly costs for phone service with an on-prem PBX are extremely low, it seems obvious that on-prem is the way to go.
The hosted PBX just can't compare.
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