Is Hosted VoIP Voice Quality Safe with BYOB?

Yesterday, we had one of our more prominent hosted PBX providers come to the AeroCom HQ in Newport Beach to do a private training of their solution.  Although I was impressed with a few unique features our representative demo’d, my antenna popped up when she said their voice quality is excellent over BYOB (bring your own bandwidth), for up to approximately 250 users/site!

What?!

Rewind…

Our company has been selling hosted PBX from every major provider available, to small and medium-size companies since 2003, but I’ve ALWAYS been told by engineers, that if a business has over 10 users and needs extremely reliable hosted VoIP voice quality, a dedicated MPLS circuit needs to be installed so that their voice traffic travels over a protected environment (i.e. not the public Internet). That is how Latency, Packet Loss and Jitter can be controlled.  I’ve been told for over 10 years that bandwidth DOESN’T MATTER because it’s all about quality of service!  Heck, we have had hosted PBX in our own office since 2005 and have always had an MPLS circuit.  YES, we follow our own advice AND pay more to make sure our phones work!

Back to the training…

Needless to say, I high-jacked the training for 15 minutes, challenging our representative’s claim and she swore up and down (for reasons too boring for this piece), that she has 100% confidence putting their solution over a public Internet connection, regardless of how conservative the business that is purchasing the solution is.  She said she could also provide references of other companies that are clients of theirs’ with 100+ users, who have no voice quality issues.

So, today I am a little unsure – but what do I know?  At the end of the day, if YOU are starting to install it and it’s working well, then times are changing.  I have started to see a lot more small companies using BYOB hosted PBX service, but could this possibly be starting to trend into mid-size companies?  I’m curious to hear from IT departments that have a substantial amount of users and who are using hosted PBX over a BYOB Internet connection.

How often are you having voice quality issues? 

Are you breaking the stereotype?

For now, I’m still being stubborn and holding on to my old opinions and playing it safe rather than sorry, when it comes to making recommendations.  Regardless of what she told me, I still would be extremely hesitant to recommend a BYOB hosted PBX solution to any company with over 20 users/site, with any provider.  Let alone 100+ users.

Sound off and tell me if I’m right or wrong?!

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About the Author
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been immersed in the business telecom and cloud industry since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. Mike is passionate about simplifying the way IT buyers shop and select telecom and cloud solutions for their company. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.