One of the oldest technologies that exist in any business office is the telephone? Many changes have occurred to the telephone over the years with additions such as voicemail, call forwarding and call waiting.
Understanding what you consider to be your needs for telephone you must first understand what telephones can do for you. There are basically two types of telephone systems. One is old-fashioned what they call hardwire systems. The second is what they referred to as IP over voice. Hard-wired systems use a lot of on-site switching gear and are subject to failure due to bad connections and outages due to interruption of the wiring by accident or storm. IP over voice, on the other hand, is an internet-driven function and provide service through storms provided electrical and/or internet connections remain intact.