Hosted VoIP Phone System: Cloud Calling

Belfabriek / 01 Apr 2024 / 5 min read

As a business owner, you want to always be optimally reachable by phone. But what are the options in 2025 to ensure accessibility?

The development of telephony and communication has advanced significantly over the past decades. In the past, a phone connection was established over a separate phone line. Today, it’s set up over the internet or a mobile network.

Hosted voice, also known as hosted VoIP, offers similar benefits such as cost savings and the ability to make phone calls over the internet.

The protocol used for this is VoIP, which stands for Voice Over IP. This protocol describes how voice can be transmitted over the internet. Using VoIP calling for a business has both advantages and disadvantages.

The Concept of Hosted VoIP

Hosted VoIP means subscribing to an internet telephony provider (your host) for Voice over IP calling.

This provider offers a phone system with a business phone number in a data center.

You no longer need a physical phone system at your office location. Instead, with cloud telephony, you have a virtual phone system with your business telephony provider, which you connect to over the internet.

A hosted VoIP system serves as the central point of telephony within organizations, fully in the cloud, ensuring optimal availability and easy management of users and call plans.

This makes a hosted VoIP phone system an attractive solution for business owners. No physical phone system means no high investments and more convenience. This initially saves you the purchase costs of a system.

Advantages of Hosted Telephony

Hosted telephony offers a range of advantages over traditional telephony. One of the biggest benefits is flexibility. With hosted telephony, you’re not tied to a physical location; as long as you have an internet connection, you can be reachable anywhere and anytime. This is ideal for companies with employees who travel frequently or work from home. You don’t need to purchase expensive hardware or sign maintenance contracts, making hosted telephony a cost-effective solution for modern businesses.

Disadvantages of Hosted VoIP Telephony

There are also disadvantages to this hosted VoIP technology: you’re dependent on a working internet connection for your phone calls. If your internet connection fails, you won’t receive calls.

It’s therefore crucial to choose a reliable VoIP provider that delivers the necessary infrastructure for cloud telephony.

Virtual Phone System + IVR Technology

With us, you not only have the option of a VoIP system where everything is delivered over the internet, but we also offer a VoIP + IVR (Interactive Voice Response) solution where we forward calls to your landline or mobile numbers or a mix of mobile and landline numbers. This is ideal for business owners who don’t want to rely on the internet.

Calls to your phone numbers are forwarded to the numbers you’ve included in your phone team dashboard.

You’ve probably forwarded your mobile phone to another phone before. This forwarding principle works perfectly and allows you to flexibly route calls to multiple numbers. This way, you’re no longer dependent on an internet connection, and you don’t need to invest in a VoIP phone (which costs around €100-125 per device).

For many startups, this solution is ideal.

You can get a business phone number from us and forward it to your mobile number and a colleague’s mobile number. As your business grows and you receive more calls, you can purchase your first VoIP phone and place it where you’re most present. This way, you’re optimally reachable at low costs. With this solution, you also don’t need a VoIP account, and you only pay for your phone number and forwarding costs. This solution is often better and cheaper than using VoIP and apps.

Proven Technology

The same IVR technology is used by large companies to avoid dependency on a connection and a VoIP phone system. They forward calls this way to multiple locations, call centers, or even countries and can reroute traffic if VoIP telephony at a location fails.

Manage Your Hosted Phone System Online

With our hosted VoIP solution, you have full control over your phone system directly from your browser. Our virtual phone system is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, so you can adjust your settings without technical knowledge. Whether you want to add new users, adjust call schedules, or view reports, everything is possible through our online interface. This means you no longer need expensive maintenance contracts and always have the flexibility to adapt your telephony to your business needs.

CRM Integration and Calling via Teams

Our hosted VoIP solution offers powerful integrations such as CRM integration and calling via Teams. The CRM integration allows you to optimize your customer relationships by integrating your CRM system with your telephony. This means you have direct access to customer information during calls, increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction. Calling via Teams enables you to centralize all your communication on one platform, improving collaboration within your team. Both features are designed to streamline your communication and help your business grow.

Summary

VoIP calling and a VoIP system have both advantages and disadvantages: with a VoIP system, you’re dependent on a working internet connection. VoIP isn’t necessarily cheap: most providers charge per user, which can quickly add up if you don’t keep track of new colleagues. A device in the meeting room or office is also an additional user.

You can be reachable on your new business phone number today with all possible features such as menus, call recording, and a welcome message. Choose whether you want this based on a working internet connection and a VoIP phone system or based on IVR technology and call forwarding.

If you’re often on the go, VoIP based on IVR technology and call forwarding is a great solution. We set up your landline number in our VoIP system and forward incoming calls to your current mobile phones. This way, you’re reachable everywhere without a fixed office location. With this solution, you’re also not dependent on a working internet connection. Hosted VoIP allows you to communicate securely and reliably, regardless of your location.

We can program a menu on your cloud phone system for optimal accessibility, with a different phone number behind each choice. This way, you can easily create virtual departments within your hosted telephony solution.

Yes, it generally is. You need a stable internet connection for good call quality. If you work with many remote workers or are often on the move, call forwarding is often a better option. This is also true if you want a landline number on mobile.

If you only work with fixed devices, a working internet connection is essential. The advantage of hosted VoIP via Belfabriek is that our solution also works perfectly with mobile phones, and we forward calls to any phone number. This can be easily set up via your phone team page.

Since phone calls are made over data networks and internet connections, it’s not entirely free. Connections between telecom operators also have interconnection fees. Additionally, consider the costs of an IT company to monitor your connection.

If you still have old phones, they can’t be used for hosted VoIP. You need VoIP devices to utilize all functionalities.

If you can buy digital IP expansion cards for your system, you can make it VoIP-compatible. However, you’re often better off with a subscription from a hosted VoIP provider. Without high investments, they can often set up a business VoIP solution for you within one working day and manage your accessibility from that point on.

This depends on whether you want everything to run over the internet or also forward calls to mobile phones. It’s important to note that our subscriptions don’t charge per user. We work with user groups, so you don’t have to pay extra for each user. We also offer prepaid packages for startups.