VoIP leaves small firms free to grow

Making use of fixed free Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows small businesses to expand without adding to their overhead costs, it has been claimed.

Samuel Schneider, marketing director at communications provider Bandwidth.com, said the prohibitive expense and maintenance demands of traditional Internet Protocol-Private Branch Exchange (IP-PBX) technology has led to the creation of a new hosted PBX model which requires monthly fees rather than an up-front investment.

"Phonebooth will absolutely bring an affordability to VoIP that hasn't been seen yet in the market, because it is free of any license fees and it does not confine small businesses to a certain number of seats, so they are free to grow," he added.

Last month, Bandwidth.com launched Phonebooth, an IP-PBX, which is a private telephone network used within an enterprise that can access a limited number of external lines.

The group claims current hosted models confine small businesses to a certain number of seats, whereas they need flexibility to sustain growth.