Business Phone Service in Saint Francis, ME

How to Choose the Best Business VoIP Service Provider in Saint Francis, ME

Most business VoIP providers in Saint Francis, ME offer plans designed to accommodate businesses of all sizes. You could have a small company with only five lines, or a large corporation that uses thousands of extensions for multiple departments. There is a VoIP service that meets your business needs.

Still, having more than one provider from which to choose requires knowing how to choose what is best. The first thing you want to do is determine the type of telephone service your business needs. Answering questions such as the number of phone lines required and features used during the normal course of business are relevant to finding the best phone service provider.

If you plan to expand, you want a system that is scalable, whether you are adding a new location or increasing needs at your current one. Of course, you want to determine how much you can afford and whether you are receiving an introductory rate that expires in 6-12 months.

Next, you can use MyRatePlan to look at different offers from business VoIP providers in Saint Francis, ME. Compare their services, prices and reputation for serving businesses in the area. Getting a good deal is great, but having a consistently working phone system is crucial to your business' success. A low rate is not good enough if the company does not have a positive track record for excellent customer service and being reliable.

What is Traditional Business Phone Service in Saint Francis, ME?

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 Saint Francis, ME. 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.

PBX and Analog Phone Systems in Saint Francis, ME

The majority of Saint Francis, ME businesses will use a PBX, or private branch exchange, which allows different internal calling features like personal extensions or conference calls. This technology allows the organization of - and flow of - calls among internal and external users to your PBX, and improves the productivity of everyone as they're able to have their line.

A traditional PBX using traditional PSTN technology can be either located on your Saint Francis, ME premises or it can be hosted remotely at some other location - but keep in mind that this kind of infrastructure has a huge price tag. The various pieces of equipment and technology required to consume a PBX at your business will start in the $1000 range and go up from there depending on the depth and breadth of your needs - while installation, configuration, and maintenance are additional to these original costs. This manual labor can be achieved by your in-house asset - should you have one capable of such things - or this work can be outsourced to a third-party professional, but these charge $100 per hour or more.

Another major drawback of traditional PBX systems is that the hardware involved can limit the amount of lines and extensions that are available - meaning that, as your business grows, you'll be looking at a significant amount of additional costs to purchase and then install, configure and maintain even more expensive hardware.

Like all physical hardware, PBX systems are likely to experience breakdowns or other system issues that can be costly to have repaired on an emergency schedule. They may also face obsolescence every few years and need to be replaced by better, more efficient systems.