A challenge for any communications manager is to weigh up relevant new technologies and decide if, when and how to adopt them. Moving to a hosted telephony system has many potential advantages beyond simply saving costs but, would things were that simple.

True, users have access to the technology, with its PBX-style features and more, without the associated overheads of capital equipment costs, deployment and support. What they should get is a leading-edge phone system – all the current features from day one, plus tomorrow’s features as they become available.

You can start usually start with a small trial installation and add seats to the outsourced system as confidence in VoIP and business need dictate – all part of the “future proofing” that many technologies promise but few actually deliver. Other potential benefits include a reduction in trunk line outlay – necessary both for internal communications and ensuring customers are well supported: they can be given VoIP phones that allow them to contact sales and service departments directly, for example.

Teleworkers and office-based workers can collaborate – the “workplace without borders” that is impossible with a conventional PBX – with teleworkers integrated into the business through their own broadband connection and available irrespective of physical location.

However, it is important to acknowledge that hosted VoIP may not be appropriate for certain businesses. Where the PBX sits off the premises, much would depend on the quality of the Internet connection from the business to the hosted VoIP provider’s service. If this WAN connection is of insufficient quality – including links to your ISP and the peering Internet partners that your ISP uses to transfer your data – then the signalling and voice quality of your VoIP calls will be poor.

Latent signalling – slow connections – would cause VoIP features to work erratically: just the sort of thing that would drive users to distraction. Likewise, poor network conditions, including latency, jitter and insufficient bandwidth can all contribute to a weak performance: the sort of poor quality that gave early manifestations of VoIP a bad name.

As is so often the case, the reality lies in balance: the ying of flexible, feature-rich telephony at a predictable cost; the yang of the potentially bleeding-edge, the shock of the new, the relinquishing of control and the potential for a great idea on paper to go horribly wrong in practice.

A full range of VoIP and IP Telephony Seminars will be held at IP EXPO see a short-list here