Moving Office Phones Off a Carrier to a Cloud Phone System: What to Know

If you’ve been told your carrier is getting out of the phone-system business — or your voice contract just doesn’t renew the way it used to — the fix is moving to a cloud phone system. It sounds like a project. For most small businesses it’s simpler than you’d expect. Here’s what’s actually involved.

What a cloud phone system is

A cloud phone system (VoIP/UCaaS) means your business phone lines run in the cloud instead of on hardware in your office. Staff use desk phones, apps on their computers, or apps on their phones. Extensions, voicemail, call routing, and recordings all live in one hosted system. No phone closet, no on-premise phone server to maintain.

The three things to plan

• Keep your numbers. Your business phone numbers can be ported to the new provider — you keep the numbers your clients call, and they never notice the change.
• Check your internet. Cloud voice runs over your connection, so call quality depends on having solid, business-grade internet. If your internet is weak, the phone system will be weak too — it’s worth fixing those together.
• Pick a provider and terms you understand. You want a phone system sized to your office that can grow with it, with terms that don’t lock you in painfully.

Why do it through a carrier-neutral broker

Here’s the part people tend to miss. When you leave one carrier’s phone system, the companies eager to take your business are often just other carriers — same incentives, different logo. A carrier-neutral broker like Northview Telecom Advisors works for you, not the carrier. Because we’re independent of any single provider, we compare options across more than 50 — then size your user count, match a cloud phone system to how your office actually works, and make sure your internet can carry it. The providers pay us, so there’s no direct cost to you for the service, and you keep one point of contact for the life of it.

Start with the free audit

You don’t have to know anything about phone systems to get a straight answer. A free 15-minute audit tells you your migration options, a realistic sense of cost on retail ranges (negotiated on your behalf), and how little it disrupts your team. Book it here or call (866) 656-8806.

Related: Is your office phone contract affected by Lumen’s change