Business Phone Systems Review: Broadview Networks' "BYOB" Hosted VoIP Solution

By Dan Baldwin

To help educate our Southern Californai based clients, prospects and multi-location business partners "who does what best" we're hosting a series of "Vendor Shootouts" on our blog where we have different leading industry vendors share why their specific solution is better than their competitor's solution in a specific customer solution category.

The current shootout category?  BYOB or "Bring Your Own Broadband"  Hosted VoIP - the Internet phone system for busiesses that connects calls over the public Internet.

 

Why Small Businesses Love BYOB Hosted VoIP...

By and large, small and medium sized businesses are still run by their entrepreneurial founders who think every technology service, especially business phone systems, ought to be able to be delivered for less money over whatever Internet connection they already have.

Business owners say, "If I can get decent VoIP phone service at home or on my cell phone with practically any Internet connection, why won't that work in my small business office?"  

This is a reasonable question. The answer is, "A VoIP business phone system that uses the public Interent CAN work but there's NO GUARANTEES that the audio quality will be good enough."

With this caveat given, many business customers say NO WAY and then start looking at the higher quality "direct connect" of MPLS versions of VoIP business phone service. Other business owners though say, "Let's try BYOB VoIP first and then we'll upgrade if it's not good enough."

The trick to making BYOB hosted VoIP work is to try BYOB hosted VoIP with a business phone service provider that embraces BYOB with more than just lip service. Broadview Networks, based in New York but serving the entire country, is one of these providers that do "all flavors" of hosted VoIP including "direct connect" (with a DIA or dedicated Internet access connection) as well at MPLS.

 

We Sell and Recommend Broadview's BYOB Hosted VoIP

This is not to say that Broadview's BYOB VoIP or any vendor's BYOB VoIP will work for you. Before choosing or trialing any business phone system you really need to spend some quality time reviewing your entire phone system or "unified communications" vision with a qualified independent telecom agency (like us).

Ther are lots of pros and cons to any VoIP or BYOB phone system solution. If it seems like an investigation of the pros and cons of BYOB suggest a trial is right for your company, we're happy to bring in Broadview Networks.  to get to know Broadview a little better please review the information below from the "BYOB Hosted VoIP" shootout below that we hosted.

Questions?  Give us a call!

 

Why 50,000 SMB's Choose Broadview Networks' Unique Hosted VoIP solutions

Broadview Networks was founded in 1996. They have business customers in 47 states and Washington DC that generate $450m in annual revenue using 1,100 employees. Broadview provides business phone systems, local phone service, wide area data networks, broadband Internet and other managed services. 

Broadview's "Best in Class" invoice earns rave reviews from multi-location business customers needing their business phone bills formatted in unique ways with specialized reporting capabilities.

With over 60 dedicated channel managers supporting their sales partners including independent telecom agents, channel partners, IT consultants and business phone systems equipment VARs, both Broadview's business customers and sales partners are well taken care of.

 

Eight Ways that Broadview's Hosted VoIP Service Offering is Unique

There are hundreds of hosted VoIP business service providers in the marketplace today but Broadview claims at least six unique points of value including:

1. Code Ownership - Broadview does not need to  buy licenses from anyone else like Broadsoft because Broadview owns their own hosted VoIP code.   This means that Broadview controls their own  phone system "roadmap" as well as service upgrade roll-outs.  This means that Broadview's channel sales partners are not competing with every Broadsoft-clone reseller on the street who all basically have the same product with just a different logo.
   
   
2. End-User and Administrator Portal is Easy to Use -  The hosted VoIP phone user and administrator portal often "makes or breaks" user acceptance of the phone system. Soft savings from upgraded phone applications can't be achieved if users aren't using them.
   
   
3. Business-Grade Call Quailty - While BYOB call quality is only "best effort" because the time the phone call spends on the public Internet, with a large percentage of Broadview's 50,000 hosted VoIP seats being provisioned as BYOB, Broadview has earned the experience to make BYOB all that it's possible to be. 
   
   To maximize BYOB call quility for their customers, Broadview conducts a site survey to measure Internet bandwidth capacity and conducts a comprehensive voice/data ratio analysis.

Nationwide Availability -  Most local business phone companies have a limited service area even after migrating their service offering to include hosted VoIP solutions. Broadview Networks has perfected their ability to provision services nation-wide for the benefit of multi-location businesses that want a single phone company.

Disaster Avoidance & Recovery Options - Businesses that absolutely need to be up and running 24-hours a day, 7-days a week no matter what enjoy the security that Broadview Networks multiple redundancy packages offer.

Call Path Pricing Model - By allowing for pricing by maximum simultaneous call paths, the Broadview price model is very appealing for business customers that may have many phones with low usage.

Carrier Clout - Unlike other hosted VoIP providers who only provide the phone service, Broadview provides phone service and the carrier connection the phone service rides on. For customers looking for "one throat to choke" this alone solves many future problems.

Mitel Phones - Because of Broadview's partnership with Mitel, a company with a rich history of phone systems design, Broadview's hosted VoIP phones are able to emulate many of the design features that business customers like in the old-fashioned classic key system phones like paging and park & retrieve.

 

Watch Broadview's BYOB Shootout Video Webinar click here

Click here or the image above to watch Broadview's BYOB Shootout Webinar

 

Pros of Broadview's BYOB Hosted VoIP

For many small and medium-sized businesses, the following pros outweigh the cons of hosted VoIP:

1. Low Cost - The low cost of using BYOB VoIP comes from the ability to get a "two for one" out of a existing Internet connection a business already has to draw the dial tone for the phone system instead of standard phone lines.  The cost normally spent each month on phone lines goes straight back to business profit.
   
   
2. Great for Under 20 Seat Locations - Businesses with one or multiple locations that need less than 20 phones are easily accommodated by the capacity of hosted VoIP. All their existing simultaneous phone calls can usually squeeze onto their existing Internet connection.  Customers that expect to grow can easily try BYOB and then perhaps migrate to "direct connect" or MPLS hosted VoIP access options.
   
   
3. Widely Accepted for Small Businesses - Small businesses without constant or heavy data usage including many restaurants and other "quick serve" retail stores enjoy the convenience of getting their phone service through their under-utilized Internet connection.
   
   
4. Easily Reconfigurable - The "MACDs" or "moves, adds, changes or disconnection" of individual phone stations that are usually a high expense for most small businesses are easy with hosted VoIP. Instead of having to pay for a phone systems vendor service call, most phone station changes can be handled by the business owner or office manager in-house using the "administrator dashboard" phone portal.
   
   
5. No High Up-Front Charges - A hosted VoIP phone system avoids the normal "phone equipment in the closet" costs but the phones on the desks must still be acquired. Broadview allows customers to procure the desk phones as part of the monthly charges so no high up-front costs prevent businesses from getting the phones they need.
   
   
6. Design Emulates Classic Key System Designs - Because of Broadview's partnership with Mitel, a company with a rich history of phone systems design, Broadview's hosted VoIP phones are able to emulate many of the design features that business customers like in the old-fashioned classic key system phones like paging and park & retrieve. 
   
   
7. Phone Decision Seperate from Bandwidth Decision -  With BYOB hosted VoIP solutions, the decision about what phone vendor you're going to use is separate from the decision about which broadband Internet provider you're going to use.  This separating allows small businesses to change either their phone provider or their Internet provider without one decision adversely affecting the other.

 

Cons of Broadview's BYOB Hosted VoIP

The reason all businesses have not adapted BYOB hosted VoIP is because of the following cons:

1. No Control of Voice Quality - Because the individual voice packets that make up the VoIP phone call go over the public Internet without any "packet control", latency and/or packet loss can cause less than perfect audio quality.
   
   
2. No Service Level Agreement or SLA - The BYOB phone companies provide "best effort only" service meaning the customer can complain about less than optimal call quality but there may be little recourse for the customer if the carrier can't fix the problem.

 

Hot Broadview BYOB Hosted VoIP Applications

1. Employee Phone Independence - Phones can be shared between different shift employees as the phone emulates the programming of which ever user is logged into the phone. Individual users are no longer tied to a particular phone or a particular location.  The USB virtual or "softphone" emulates the phone on any computer with a headset so the employee doesn't even need an expensive desk phone while traveling - or ever for some.
   
   
2. Avoid Printing Cell Phone Numbers in Business Cards - Mobile "twinning" ensures no call is ever missed by simultaneously ringing both desk and cell phones at the same time.  This negates the need for sales employees giving out their cell phone numbers to customers which can be quite problematic if the sales person quits and goes to work for a competitor.
   
   
3. Disaster Avoidance & Recovery - User and administrator portals allow for the near instant redirecting of any or all incoming business phone calls in the event of an emergency to alternate business locations or employee cells phones working from home.

 

The Hosted VoIP Opportunity with Broadview Networks

Annual sales will grow to $5.4 billion for hosted IP phone services in 2015 which represents a 33% annual growth through 2015 as reported by Frost & Sullivan in July 2010.

Broadview has put a total of 50,000 seats in service from 2006 through 2010 with their strong BYOB hosted offering providing most of the growth.

Broadview's OfficeSuite provides a business phone system, a calling plan, an online portal with secure multi-site data networking and high-speed Internet access. The calling plan includes 150,000 minutes per site - the equivalent of unlimited calling. 

The Broadview hosted VoIP solution uses a combination of Mitel phones, a USB softphone, standard 24-key phone, executive LCD phone & conference unit phone. 

Broadview offers "bring your own broadband" hosted VoIP options as well as "direct connect" via DIA (dedicated Internet access) and the super stable and secure MPLS option. 

 

Broadview's Full Business Services Suite Includes:

1. Hosted VoIP (OfficeSuite, DynamicIP, SIP trunking) 
   
   
2. Voice (local, regional & long distance, dedicated & switched access, conferencing, toll-free, mobile, voicemail)
   
   
3. Wide Area Data/ Broadband Interent (dedicated Internet access, Ethernet, MPLS, Colocation, data continuity, disaster recovery)
   
   
4. Hardware & Systems (Routers, Switches, Firewalls)
   
   
5. Security (Data backup, firewalls/network security, virtual private networks, e-mail security, content filtering)  
   
   
6. Professional Services (IT project outsourcing, network design & implementation, network integration, wiring & structured cabling, custom solutions)

 

Broadview Hosted VoIP Feature Sets Include...

USB "virtual" soft phone, click-to-dial, paging, integrated messaging, hunt group, broadcast group, ACD, contact center features, call queuing, skill-based routing, customizable hold treatments, multi-site agents, configurable timeouts/escalations, whisper announcements, confirm call acceptance, at-home and mobile agent support, call recording, agent evaluation tools,fixed mobile convergence, OfficeSuite over Switched Ethernet, call recording, visual voicemail, voicemail Groups.

 

Broadview Customer Testimonials

Video Customer Testimonials    Written Customer Testimonials

 

Wondering if Broadview's BYOB Hosted VoIP is Right for You?

Contact us today, your independent authorized Broadview Agent. We'll help you compare Broadview's solutions to all available solutions to ensure you pick the right vendor for your specific needs and budget.

Looking for a Southern California based, vendor neutral business communications technology service expert that can help you out with your multi-location telecom or data network problems?

Click here to learn about how we might be able to fix your problem for free, then contact me directly at 951-251-5155 or [email protected]. 

BaldwinTel helps multi-location businesses across the United States but specializes Southern California especially San Diego County, Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County.

Los Angeles County

Eastside, San Gabriel Valley, Pomona Valley, Westside, Beach Cities, South Bay, Palos Verdes Peninsula, South Los Angeles, Gateway Cities, San Fernando Valley, Conejo Valley, Antelope Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, Downtown Los Angeles, Mid-Wilshire, Agoura Hills, Alhambra, Arcadia, Artesia, Avalon, Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bell, Bell Gardens, Bellflower, Beverly Hills, Bradbury, Burbank, Calabasas, Carson, Cerritos, Claremont, Commerce, Compton, Covina, Cudahy, Culver City, Diamond Bar, Downey, Duarte, El Monte, El Segund,o Gardena, Glendal,e Glendora, Hawaiian Garden,s Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Hidden Hills, Huntington Park, Industry, Inglewood, Irwindale, La Cañada, Flintridge, La Habra Heights, La Mirada, La Puente, La Verne, Lakewood, Lancaster, Lawndale, Lomita, Long Beac,h Los Angeles, Lynwood, Malibu, Manhattan Beac,h Maywood, Monrovia, Montebello, Monterey Park, Norwalk, Palmdale, Palos Verdes Estates, Paramount, Pasadena, Pico Rivera Pomona Rancho Palos Verdes Redondo Beach Rolling Hills Rolling Hills Estates Rosemead San Dimas San Fernando San Gabriel San Marino Santa Clarita Santa Fe Springs Santa Monica Sierra Madre Signal Hill South El Monte South Gate, South Pasadena, Temple City, Torrance, Vernon, Walnut, West Covina, West Hollywood, Westlake Village, Whittier

Orange County

Aliso Viejo, Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Dana Point, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, La Habra, La Palma, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Orange, Placentia, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Stanton, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster, Yorba Linda, Tustin, Villa Park, Westminster, Yorba Linda, 

Riverside County

Banning, Beaumont, Blythe, Calimesa, Canyon Lake, Cathedral City, Coachella, Corona, Desert Hot Springs, Eastvale, Hemet, Indian Wells, Indio, Jurupa Valley, Lake Elsinore, La Quinta, Menifee, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Norco, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Perris, Rancho Mirage, Riverside, San Jacinto, Temecula, Wildomar,

San Bernardino County

Adelanto,  Apple Valley, Barstow, Big Bear Lake, Chino, Chino Hills, Colton, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Hesperia, Highland, Loma Linda, Montclair, Needles, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto, San Bernardino, Twentynine Palms, Upland, Victorville, Yucaipa, Yucca Valley, 

San Diego County

Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Coronado, Del Mar, El Cajon, Encinitas, (Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Leucadia, Olivenhain), Escondido, Imperial Beach, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, National City, Oceanside, Poway, San Diego, San Marcos, Santee, Solana Beach, Vista