Business Phone Service in Harvey, IL

Choosing the Best Business Phone Service in Harvey, IL

There is a ton of competition for your business when it comes to providing your VoIP service to your Harvey, IL business. While this may seem daunting in that there are so many choices and so many offers that seem advantageous - it's a fact that competition can be used to the consuming businesses' advantage, and we can leverage one competitor against another for the absolute best results.

The most important questions you should consider are how many lines you currently need, how many lines you anticipate needing in the near/farther future, what phone features your business plans on using on a regular basis and what your overall budget is.

Next, do some shopping around to see which Harvey, IL VoIP service best suits your needs - and also ensure you do a good amount of research into the company's reviews by other business customers. Having reliable and quality telephone service is critical to any business, and so you want to make sure the vendor you do business with has a positive track record of happy and loyal customers that believe in the offering before you sign up.

What is Traditional Business Phone Service in Harvey, IL?

Traditional phone service companies transmit their signals through a PSTN. The PSTN uses circuit-switched telephony. It is based on copper wires carrying analog voice data. Telephone services that are facilitated by PSTN are often known as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) because it has been operational for more than 100 years. It was the first mode of a network to be used by telephone service providers. The PSTN also comprises of satellites, mobile networks, and cables.

The PSTN infrastructure is very large. Therefore, it is expensive to use PSTN telephone service than VoIP in Harvey, IL. Moreover, the PSTN network is old and often requires maintenance. The major setback of PSTN telephone services is that they have difficulties when sending data over long distances because they are analog.

When making long distance calls over the PSTN, the data has to stop at different destinations during its transmission. The data flow through the equipment owned by various companies as the call is in progress. Therefore, it makes the call cost per minute higher and expensive. The traditional phone service companies use a lot of infrastructures to carry, switch, and route the calls that are now digital. However, the connection between the local central office and the customer is still analog.

Analog Phone System Use With a PBX in Harvey, IL

A private branch exchange or PBX, is what most Harvey, IL businesses use to route calls inside their own offices. The PBX permits multiple extensions, voicemail, call forwarding and other important features. On a PSTN, the user's premises or an off-site location can house the PBX. A PBX costs a lot of money to run, regardless of the location.

This is due to required hardware costs, an investment of at least $1000. The equipment then has to be installed, configured and maintained on a regular basis. These, of course, cost money in addition to the initial purchase price. You have the option to get your in-staff employees to be responsible for the equipment or hire a professional. Professionals are known to charge $100 per hour or more.

Any kind of updates or maintenance on a traditional PBX system in Harvey, IL is going to be very expensive. Be advised that such a system may not be adequate for all your needs, as it only supports a limited number of phone lines. You will need to spend extra money if you need to add more extensions in the future as your business grows.

From time to time, a PBX system will breakdown, just like any other network made from electrical components. In order to repair the hardware, you'll need to be prepared to pay high fees and may even need to buy new hardware to replace it. This could present a potential financial obstacle for start-ups or slow-growing businesses.