The State of Hosted VoIP for Business in 2016

In 2016, which Hosted VoIP Providers are IT Buyers purchasing for their companies and what are their thoughts after experiencing these providers for a few months?

As we speak, this data is being collected on our website, aerocominc.com, which is a socially conscious review website and marketplace for business telecom and cloud services. Although it has only been live for a few months (as of January 31st, 2016), we have already accumulated some interesting data that I’d like to share, such as the overall sentiment that business IT buyers are feeling about Hosted VoIP, which service providers are being reviewed most often, which are the highest rated and finally, an interesting observation about deploying Hosted VoIP over 3rd party bandwidth.

Sure, the sample size is small but I’ll take a small amount of real users over analysts any day.

Business VoIP is Highly Rated by IT Buyers, Overall

Hosted VoIP providers have an average rating of 3.9 “brains” out of 5 (which is our equivalent of a 5 star rating system). In other words, IT buyers are having good experiences, overall, with hosted VoIP service for their company. Surprised the rating is that high? I honestly was… just a little. Tell that to your boss who’s concerned about the word “VoIP.”

Which are the Most Popular Hosted VoIP Providers?

User “Nward” expands on his 4 Brain review of Digium:

“I have used Digium switchbox for years and it is a great product. Their email and phone support is very helpful when you need help. we used polycom 335 with their system…”

The potential benefit of using a popular provider is that you have higher odds that they have seen every possible issue and configuration imaginable and hopefully have ways to avoid surprise problems during your installation or quickly resolve possible lengthy, perplexing quality issues. Not to mention the natural feeling that there is safety in numbers.

Which are the Best Hosted VoIP Providers, in the Eyes of IT Buyers?

User “Ianstewart” Gives RingCentral 4 Brains:

“We are a small to medium sized company who switched over to RingCentral after about a year and a half of intermittently bad phone service with another VoIP provider. we are really happy with this setup and never had any major issues with them. Our phone system feels like an advanced…”

Surprising Observation: Deploying VoIP over 3rd Party Bandwidth is Unrelated to Providers’ Ratings

One surprising observation I made is that the highest rated Hosted VoIP provider, RingCentral, only delivers it’s service over 3rd party Internet bandwidth and does not have the ability to deliver voice over a dedicated VoIP circuit. Moreover, they out-ranked several other providers that deliver on a dedicated circuit.

This is really surprising to me, considering that for the 12 years our company has been selling Hosted VoIP to businesses, service providers have preached that sending voice over the public Internet is like playing roulette… you never know what you are going to get and call quality is never guaranteed.

Well so far, the proof is in the pudding and the dedicated circuits don’t seem to be making a difference.

So those are the stats so far. I’m fascinated to see how these evolve over time, as the data set becomes larger. I’m also interested what you think about these findings, since they are based on reviews from IT buyers as opposed to “Analyst Recommendations?”

What were your thoughts? Any questions that came to mind while reading these findings?