Comparing Hosted Services Vendors for Small Businesses

Recently, Blair Pleasant and Dave Michels of UCStrategies set out to identify and profile several hosted services targeted at small businesses, concentrating on those of fewer than 20 users.

Access. All firms interviewed expect the customer to use the public Internet for access. There was very little discussion or concern about the quality of service issues that could arise from use of the public Internet. Most providers have some tools to test the bandwidth, however none offered regular monitoring or troubleshooting for network congestion. None of the firms offered strong assurances or SLAs regarding the overall experience or system availability.

The extreme difficult

Comparing pricing is in the extreme difficult. There is no consistency or simple way to compare vendors’ pricing, as some features are included in pricing bundles and others are sold a la carte. They recommend that clients prepare a list of the features and functionality required for each user and try to compare apples-to-apples as best as possible.

The hosted VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) providers all offered the basic calling features—unlimited local and long distance calling, automated attendant, visual voicemail/unified messaging, Call forward/Call transfer/Call waiting, Enhanced E911, dial by name, Caller ID, Do Not Disturb, Ring Group, Find Me/Follow Me, call rules and scheduling, call log reporting, call recording, and other basic call functions.

The vendors differ

Where the vendors differ, they found, "is in more advanced features just as contact center capabilities, advanced mobility, conferencing, unified communications, desktop controls, and advanced unified communications capabilities."