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You’re in need of simplifying your business communication system. You’ve signed up for some marketing newsletters from various VoIP providers, but you’re still not sure where to begin. You don’t want a complicated system, one that requires time or upgrades and costly maintenance. You hear a lot about hosted systems versus private systems. Which do you choose? Well, it all depends on your needs.

With IP telephony, one attractive option is going with a hosted model, as it’s already a hassle-free technology that requires little to no attention.

Since there is no need to worry about scalability and upgrades due to capacity requirements, hosted options are usually favored. Managing line cards, trunk cards or space in your capacity is also not required. Hosted providers handle capacity, performance and configuration of the total VoIP system themselves. The hosted model affords businesses added growth flexibility, with solutions for every sized business.  It also provides businesses with access to a slew of powerful communication applications and capabilities.

A private, or premises-based system is located at the customer site, meaning that the customer has acquired the equipment and decided to make an investment in its workforce to manage and operate it. There’s a bigger capital expenditure to have the equipment on the premises, and because there is a recurring fee, to manage the system, total cost of ownership (TCO) will be higher. This is a good choice for businesses with a larger budget that also wish to have everything in-house.

With a hosted system, the only thing delivered to the customer premise is the phones. All of the inner-workings of the system are at the hosted provider’s facilities. This is typically an appealing option for customers because it provides them with high quality, flexible and scalable communications services without the major upfront financial hit.

For service providers, having a hosted softswitch offering means having a third-party to manage the backend, which means you can concentrate growing business without any worry.