We Install and Maintain Phone Systems for Small Businesses

You know what the most annoying thing about phone installers in New York City is?  They’ll tell you a million reasons why their brand is the best, because at the end of the day, that’s the only brand they sell!  Good thing Everglades Technologies isn’t married to one brand.  The only thing we are married to is customer satisfaction.  Corny, but true.  Just check out our customer testimonials, and you’ll see why we’re NYC’s preferred phone system installer.

The latest addition to our line: the Avaya IP Office.

You can request a quote, read our guide on how to choose a phone system, or check out the latest VoIP phones.

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Voice Over IP Traditional Hybrid
  • Increased Savings
  • Never miss a call
  • Gain Portability
  • Systems range from 4-150 users
  • No monthly cost
  • Remote Management
  • Reduce costs
  • Streamline the network architecture
  • Make services portable and flexible

Traditional PBX vs Hosted PBX

When comparing PBX solutions, there is no wrong solution or better solution. As a consumer looking to integrate a voice system in your business, you should be looking for the tightest fitting solution. That means considering and balancing 4 factors  – pricing, features, growth potential, service support.

First of all, let’s define aTraditional PBX and a Hosted PBX

Traditional PBX: Basically a Phone System installed in an office that routes incoming calls from telephone lines generally to phones in the office and provides features such as transfer, conference, exts for users, VM, Auto Attendants, Unified Messaging, etc.

Hosted PBX: Enhanced phone Service provided by the carrier using VoIP, with features routing capability that emulate a traditional PBX.

Pricing:

Phone lines: Generally Hosted PBX service is cheaper out of the box. Let’s assume all companies in this day and age require an Internet connection. This isn’t a far out statement, unless you’re old school business that analyzes typewriter keys for the FBI, you need an Internet connection. With HPBX your phone traffic will ride on the Internet connection. With a traditional PBX, you’ll need separate phone lines to connect phone service.

Equipment: Unless you have experience with phone systems, its always a surprise how expensive it is to purchase one. Like cars, there is a base price for the standard unit, but as you add features, phones and lines, the price can easily double and triple. Expansion modules for extra extensions, unified messaging, voicemail boxes, license codes, additional handsets. You can easily spend a $15,000 for a mid size office. Hosted PBX rules here.

Service Cost: Hosted PBX service will have charges over time. The carrier does provide a service to manage, route and maintain the services for all phones. If ongoing monthly costs is a large factor, then take the cost of phone lines and phone service and subtract it from the monthly cost quoted by the carrier for Hosted PBX service.  If Hosted PBX service is found to be excessively more expensive, then it may not be right for you.

Features:

For routing calls within an office, via transfer, call park, conference, paging – Traditional PBX has the edge. It was built for this type of work and the newer reputable systems, such as Avaya do it very well. Hosted PBX uses a protocol built for the Internet to perform the same actions. They work well, but not as tightly as the traditional PBX. Now, over a large area Hosted PBX has the edge. The carrier usually doesn’t care if one phone is on Lexington Avenue and the other is Hudson Street, it will transfer, page, conference, hold VMs between those phones just as easily as if they were a few feet away from each other. Remember, the carrier’s phone service is already off site, so one offsite phone is usually the same as another off site phone.

Growth Potential:

With a traditional PBX, your phone system doesn’t change over time. Make sure the system you get can grow with your company. If there is a decent chance you will double in size in 5 years, make sure your phone system can handle that many new phones, Voicemail boxes, and additional needed lines.  You do not need to buy a system with those lines and features pre-activated,

but you need to make sure the system is rated to expand to for those expected lines and users. Find out what expansion equipment and licenses is needed as that could potentially be an expensive cost. With Hosted PBX, the service is provided by the carrier. They manage the health and growth of their own systems and they are not worried about the 10 extra users you add in a year, their growth goals are more in the thousands.

Service and Support:

With Hosted PBX you are paying monthly for support to maintain and troubleshoot your phone service. Phone issues and changes such as changing names and resetting VM passwords can be done by the carrier by opening a ticket. Many administrative tasks can also be controlled by the users, usually via a web portal. With a traditional PBX, the level of administrative support is about the same, but the technical support when things go wrong vary greatly. If you need fast, hassle free support, make sure you get a good monthly support contract with the PBX vendor or service company that installed your system.

In the end, a business is a reflection of the owner. Is money the main decision factor, or is hassle free support more important. Do you have remote offices or only one office? Do you want to control over your system or your carrier? Keep those questions in mind.