Death of Business Phone Greatly Exaggerated

A recent Pew Research study found that while 44 percent of those surveyed would find it hard to part with their cell phone, only 17 percent could say the same thing about their landline phone.

Are landline phones dead? Yes; it is only a matter of time. This is not saying that business phone systems are finished, however.

That’s because cell phones may be the communications gateway for most of us now, but they are portable communications devices and not really a business phone replacement.

Cell phones suffer from a few limitations at present. They can run out of battery, especially if a user is in the field for several hours and draining his battery with power-intensive LTE use. They can suffer from coverage issues, as anyone who takes their cell phone into giant office buildings can attest. They can connect with unified communications solutions via apps—but not usually through the phone’s native calling functionality. And when it comes to business use, they usually leave with the employee when that person changes companies.

Virtual PBX solutions don’t suffer from these limitations. A virtual PBX system such as Nextiva is independent of any given device. So it works with office phones, on cell phones, and then follows the employee home if a little work-from-home action is in the plans.

Because of this independence from any given device, virtual PBX solutions don’t suffer from the battery or signal coverage issues of cell phones. They also play nice with other digital systems and desk phones such as those offered by Polycom and others.

At the same time, virtual PBX solutions don’t walk off when employees change companies. Employees can take their business phone system home with them, but the number and the system stays with the company even when the employee leaves.

These factors make virtual PBX business phone systems a lot more useful than traditional landlines, and they actually reinforce the importance of cell phones without being replaced by them.

This all could change at some future date, of course; Apple and others are working on overcoming the limitations of the cell phone. We’re still a long way off from replacing business phone systems with cell phone-based systems, however. The business phone system, in the form of the virtual PBX, should be with us for a good long time to come.

Edited by Maurice Nagle