What are Cloud Phones and How Do They Work for Orange County Businesses?

To make the best decisions for your Orange County business, you need all the facts. Choosing your business phone system is no different. While most companies have a firm grasp of what local phone providers are offering – landlines and cellphone SIM card numbers – you must also consider the possibility of cloud phones using VOIP technology. Cloud phones, also called VOIP or Unified Communications, are the hot new rival for business landline and cell plans because they offer an incredibly feature-rich and app-integrated experience for businesses, not to mention the significant flexibility of any platform accessed through the cloud.

Let’s dive into the meaning of cloud phones, how they work, and what cloud phones have to offer your Orange County business.

What Are Cloud Phones?

Cloud phones are phone services provided through the internet instead of traditional phone lines or cell phone networks. When one considers all the other things now available through online platforms, it’s no surprise that phones have joined the ranks of SaaS-style service providers. Everything traditional phones did with a complex PBX system can be easily replicated through software, and the data of each call transferred through the internet.

Between faster internet lines and the predominance of personal device ownership, cloud phones have become the most viable and cost-effective way to provide a number to every employee, location, and answering system.

Cloud phone services include everything an old-fashioned PBX can do – and often much more as software features are limited only by app programing. This is why cloud phones often quickly lead to Unified Communication – in which your phones, messaging, texting, and even social media can all be managed under one communication plan.

How Cloud Communication Works

So how do cloud phones work? This concept is easy to grasp once you understand the cloud itself. The ‘cloud’ is a self-perpetuating space created by mirroring and relaying data in server banks worldwide. There are server bank locations in every major city, and some nestled safely in the middle of nowhere. These server banks use buildings full of real servers to host billions of virtual servers that, in turn, replicate their data to other, distant server banks. This means that if anyone’s servers’ physical location were destroyed, cloud data would still be available ‘floating’ in several other worldwide server banks.

This makes for faster data retrieval – from the server bank nearest you – and a floating backup that a single disaster can’t wipe out.

Cloud phones use the same cloud system to relay telephone, video, and chat communications over the internet using that network of self-reinforcing server banks. Because the phone system connects to the vast public internet, it also makes access to numbers available from any internet-capable device. Employees can log into the app and answer their business phone numbers from any location in the world with an internet signal. Any device, any place, any time, because the phone connects via the internet cloud instead of a hard-tied landline or even a local cell tower.

High-Speed Internet vs. Phone Lines

So what makes cloud phone systems better than traditional phone systems? This is all about comparing high-speed internet to phone lines. Back when the internet was slow, phone lines had more reliability and audio fidelity. However, the paradigm has long since shifted. With high-speed internet, VOIP consistently provides crisp, high-quality calls.

Now, most businesses have a high-speed internet plan as a must-have. This means your office is already wired to channel huge currents of data. Your remote workers likely also have high-speed internet at home to connect to your online (often cloud-based) work and collaboration platforms.

With cloud phone VOIP, there is no need for a second line installation. Landlines are now less powerful and less common than high-speed internet. High-speed internet is all you need to enjoy the complete feature set of cloud phones at crisp and reliable quality.

Flexibility Benefits of Cloud Phones for Business

Finally, there’s the question of flexibility. Cloud phones have more features than a traditional PBX, and the plans are often more affordable than your local business phone options. But what makes cloud phones worth the change is flexibility.

A cloud phone number can be answered from anywhere on any device. Employees using their cell don’t even have to give out their cell numbers – because cloud phones are responded to through an app instead of through the SIM card. A person can have more than one cloud number and answer them freely on any device. A person working from home or in the field or on-site can answer the same phone number they’d answer (and make outgoing calls from) sitting at their desk in the office.

If a team member changes office locations, they can take their number with them. If you change business locations entirely, you won’t need a new phone system or update your numbers with every contact. You can also add and remove numbers from your plan with minimal impact to the plan itself because cloud phones are software and therefore easily scalable.

Are Cloud Phones Right for Your Business?

Now that you understand the workings of cloud phones and the many benefits they offer, you’re in the right place to decide for your Orange County company’s phone services. If you think cloud phones, VOIP, and unified communications might be your company’s best phone solution, we can help. We’ll happily discuss features, package details, and pricing to help you make the best choice in your unique business situation. Technijian is proud to work with and offer the 3CX hosted phone system, providing VOIP and cloud phone services to businesses worldwide.

Whether your team is working from home or traveling abroad, cloud-based phone systems offer several distinct advantages to modern companies. Multiple locations, moving locations, workforce flexibility, and all the handy software-based features you can’t get with a traditional PBX make a strong case for upgrading or choosing VOIP as your company’s first installed phone system. Contact us to find out more and consult on the best cloud phone plan for your Orange County business.