The advantages to an in-house phone system are control, cost savings over time,
lower costs to expand, and the ability to choose SIP trunk providers for
lower cost calls. Cloud based phone service (hosted VoIP) is great
for many small businesses and other unique situations, but for mid-sized and
larger companies that want to have complete control and have the resources
to manage a VoIP system, like call center
operations, hospitality services, or companies that experience heavy call
volumes and need a greater number of lines (trunks), then an on premise
IP-PBX
phone system is most likely the best choice.
Most hosted VoIP
providers offer some extended features such as conferencing, call recording,
and call analytics, to name a few, that may come with additional fees
driving up monthly costs. An on-premise phone system lowers costs in these
situations.
Our three
best VoIP appliance choices for the best on premise VoIP phone systems all have
received awards and continue to receive industry recognition for their features, stability, ease of installation, ease of
configuration and company commitment with excellent support. All use a
flavor of Asterisk (without license fees) as their core PBX
software driving costs lower than any other time, ever. And for those that need
advanced apps, like an ACD package, hospitality services, CRM integration or
advanced call center features; buying those extras are a one time expense and not
always tied to fees per user, per year or per whatever.
These top picks remain the best self manage on-premise IP-PBX choices for 2021. Sangoma offers both FreePBX and PBXact systems. The Yeastar S20 series gets 4 star reviews and Grandstream's UCM appliances have been described by IT managers as packed with features.
Both the UCM6202 and UCM6204 support up to 500 users and 30/45 concurrent calls. The UCM6208 supports up to 800 users and 100 concurrent calls. The last number indicates the number of FXO ports. While for even larger enterprises, the UCM6510 with an integrated T1 supports up to a whopping 2000 SIP endpoint registrations and 200 concurrent calls.
Grandstream UCM6200 series stands out for bringing multiple needs all under one system, namely voice, video, mobility and facilities management and security. It is a top pick for both small and medium sized companies that want to move to one network, unifying their communications. Some notable points:
Sangoma FreePBX has six appliances, the 40, 60, 75, 100, 400 and 1000. The number indicates the maximum amount of extensions. Each, except for the System 40, offer at least 1 or more PCI express slots, so those needing a T1/PRI have multiple choices and Sangoma makes some of the best in the world.
Sangoma's FreePBX appliances are the only officially supported hardware solution for FreePBX which makes it a first go-to option for FreePBX lovers. Choosing Sangoma FreePBX will pay multiple dividends in the ease of deployment and configuration, rather than creating your own system with unsupported hardware which is bound to require more time consuming administration and maintenance.
Yeastar offers the S20, S50, S100, and S300 models ready to accept various interface cards, including GSM. The S100 and S300 accept up to 2 or 4 T1/PRI modules respectively, making these viable options for call centers or other high volume businesses. Each model number indicates the number of minimum users.
Yeastar VoIP PBXs are gaining recognition and growing in presence and deployments. The S-Series takes appliances a step higher. Matched with Yeastar phones, some of best affordable IP phones in the world, makes one of the best on premise phone systems.
All three manufacturers have designed excellent affordable feature rich UC appliances. Each make phones that have been well received and are deployed worldwide. Consider the following:
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