The Best Phone Systems for Small Business Operations

The best phone systems for small business operations are generally those systems which offer lots of configuration flexibility (i.e. lots of useful features to choose from), but can be delivered as a simple solution.

Traditionally, phone systems for smaller businesses lacked the features available to larger businesses (which of course also had larger budgets). This was typically the case because system features were often tied to hardware components (for example voicemail was usually a completely separate machine), and smaller systems simply did not have enough computing power to provide more than a basic set of features.

The open source revolution in telecom, spearheaded by the Asterisk project—but complemented by many other projects such as FreePBX, OpenSIPS, FreeSwitch, Kamailio, and so forth—drove the cost of telecommunication systems down, and raised the bar on what sort of features could be delivered on a computer-based platform (as opposed to the old, proprietary hardware-based platforms). Suddenly, it was possible to download a complete PBX in software, for free, and get features that were unheard of in even the most expensive systems only a few years previous. These new open source PBXs rapidly gained popularity, as many felt they were the best phone systems for small business operations.

The challenge, unfortunately, was that these new innovations didn’t change the fact that the design and implementation of the system still required either a) an extensive skillset, or b) the time and curiousity needed to achive a result based on trial-and-error.

The best phone systems for small business operations are not so much based on hardware and software as they are based on the team that ensures their success.

Find out what happens when a rich set of features is combined with decades of experience in the design, implementation and support of business telecommunication systems. Your telecommunications challenges can be solved. We can help.