Traditionally there have been three ways to implement VoIP for small and medium businesses;

 

Traditional Phone Service and Third Party PBX

 

Traditional phone service hasn’t changed much over the last 100+ years.  Costly, inefficient and limited in functionality and features, it’s a technology that has reached the end of its lifecycle.  Experts predict that traditional phone service will be completely phased out in the next 10–15 years.  Third Party PBX systems can be extremely expensive, difficult to implement and maintain, and become obsolete over time.

 

Traditional phone service and a complex, expensive traditional business phone system (PBX) from a third party lack features and costs tens of thousands of dollars. They have missed the Paradigm Shift of Outsourcing, Home Offices, Cell Phones and the Internet – Even after converting many of their products to do VoIP at the customer premise.

 

PBX Manufacturer with Third Party Digital Phone Service

 

More recently you could purchase a PBX from one company and tie it to Internet phone service from another company. This approach is more of a science project than a solution and lacks features as well as quality and reliability. So much so that many PBX manufacturers are recommending more expensive traditional phone service with their products.

 

Hosted PBX with Digital Phone Service

 

Hosted PBX service was the first (almost) viable digital phone service for small businesses.  A hosted solution allowed small businesses to gain the features of an on premise PBX without the expensive up front costs.  However, the limitations of this solution soon became apparent.  With a per phone monthly charge of $25 - $50 (plus the initial cost of the phone itself) businesses with more than a few phones found themselves paying the same or more than they were previously paying for their traditional service.  Hosted solutions also require large amounts of bandwidth and lack the monitoring necessary to provide consistently reliable, high quality service.

 

 

Now there’s another option!

 

Star 2 Star - One System, One Service, One Provider!

 

Star2Star Communications took the time to examine each of these approaches carefully before developing its own architecture. Our belief is that before a business grade Internet phone service is a viable solution for the small and medium sized business environment it has to exceed current VoIP solutions being offered to consumers and even surpass traditional phone service.

 

The Star2Star architecture does just that. It delivers powerful features, superior quality, unmatched reliability, and dramatic cost savings. Our unique approach provides an end-to-end integrated business grade phone solution. We do this by building a PBX phone system and service together from the ground up which allows us to monitor and manage the entire call pathway.

 

It starts with the StarBox, a super-reliable, solid-state, fanless on-premise PBX. Whether you are using a cable, DSL or T1 Internet connection this phone system provides powerful and unique calling features, voice menus, ring groups and call queues.

 

The StarBox offers hundreds of features, including many exclusive and upgraded capabilities. One of the most popular features is Star2Star's advanced version of call forwarding with a Find-Me/Follow-Me option where your office phone can ring at branch locations while also ringing your cell phone, home phone or even a laptop softphone.

 

The Star2Star web-based advanced settings menu allows you to quickly build multi-layer automated attendant menus and setup ring groups, customer service queues, paging, and even customize your music on hold. Extensions can be tailored to allow or prohibit certain activities such as international calling or outbound calling. Users can set up their own speed dial, call forwarding, Find-Me/Follow-Me, voice mail options, call blocking and an "operator" designation if they are unavailable to answer a call. Plus, the latest company directory is always just a click away as a printout. We can even have your voice prompt professionally recorded if you wish. You can also keep your old number.

 

Because our PBX and our Service are designed from the ground up for business we include support for multiple locations, remote "home office" extensions, directory listing, 911, fax machines, burglar alarms and credit card machines.