Traditionally there have been three ways to implement VoIP for small and medium businesses.
- Traditional Phone Service and Third Party PBX
- PBX Manufacturer with Third Party Phone Service
- Hosted PBX with VoIP Phone Service
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.
To make clear the difference between what we offer and the shortcomings of these other approaches we offer the following comparisons.
| Feature | Star2Star | Traditional Phone Service and Third Party PBX | VoIP Phone Company and Third Party PBX | VoIP Phone Company with Hosted PBX |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||||
| End-to-End integrated solution. The PBX and the phones service were built from the ground up to provide powerful features, superior quality, unmatched reliability and dramatic savings. | Yes | No | No | No |
| Quantity of calls being delivered Traditional Line $100 per month DSL $70 per month Cable modem $70 per month T1 Line $600 per month PRI $900 per month |
We can Mix 1 30 30 60 23 |
Only Analog 1 0 0 0 23 |
Only VoIP Not Available 7 not advised 7 not advised 14 Not Available |
Only VoIP Not Available 7 not advised 7 not advised 14 Not Available |
| Powerful Features | ||||
| Find-Me/Follow-Me forwarding: Your office phone can ring at branch locations while also ringing your cell phone, home phone or even a laptop soft-phone. This can be set up or modified in a few seconds from the Star2Star web portal. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| Incoming call routing without added phone lines: You can have as many incoming phone numbers as you want independent of how many phone lines you have for a nominal monthly fee. Each number can be setup to do something different when it rings. For example one number can be your central number which calls the receptionist desk, a second number could be answered by an automated attendant for your customer service department. A third number could be setup to ring all the phones in the sales department. A forth number could ring directly to your extension and bypass the operators and menus. |
Yes | No | Sometimes | No |
| Time based call routing: Incoming calls can be routed on a different day when your business is closed. You can define a different set of hours for each day of the week. This can be combined with the incoming call routing to provide unique daytime and after-hours activities for each incoming number. |
Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Multiple company identities: The phone system allows you to have an unlimited number of different company identities in the same phone system. Each company identity has its own phone number and gets answered differently. You can have 3 companies or 3 departments of the same company each with its own workflow, menus, group and recordings. You can even use different line appearances on the phones to let you know which company or department the caller thinks he or she is calling so you can answer accordingly. You can also dial out from either company using the same phone by which line you select. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| Configurable outbound Caller ID | Yes | No | No | No |
| Multi-layer automated attendant: You can quickly build multi-layer automated attendant menus which can send a call to any number of destinations such as the operator, ring a group of phones, a queue for the next available agent, a voice mailbox, a recording, the company directory etc. Destinations can include extensions at other locations or remote employees working from home. This is all done in an intuitive web interface. |
Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Extension user rights: Extensions can be tailored to allow or prohibit certain activities such as international calling or outbound calling |
Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Unlimited free voice mail | Yes | No | No | No |
| Message waiting indicator light | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message waiting stutter tone | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Call waiting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Web based control: Users set up speed dial, call forwarding, find-me/follow-me and voicemail options online |
Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Ring group timeout | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Operator designation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Customer service call queues | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ACD assisted call distribution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Queue caller timeout | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Blind transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Assisted transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Call parking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Directed call pickup | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Operator panel | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Do not disturb | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in paging groups | Yes | No | No | No |
| Voice mail groups | Yes | No | No | No |
| Front door intercom | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | No |
| Overhead paging | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | No |
| Custom on-hold music: Customize your music on hold with any MP3 or subscribe to our on hold music streaming service. We can also create on hold sales or information messages. |
Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Call blocking: Call blocking is built in for each extension |
Yes | Centralized | Centralized | Centralized |
| Company directory: The latest company directory is always just a click away as a printout. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| Voice prompts: Professionally recorded greeting. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| Number porting: Keep your old telephone number |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple location support: Support for multiple locations. Any number of branch offices can be made into one virtual phone system for transfers, ring groups, call queues, automated attendants, shared operator, etc. |
Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Home office extensions: Supports unlimited remote "home office" extensions over home DSL or Cable connection |
Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Directory listing: Directory listing provided with service |
Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Virtual extensions | Yes | No | No | No |
| Softphone extension | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| External extension (like a cell phone) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Outlook integration | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| 911 support | Yes | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Fax support | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| POS machines (credit card approval) | Yes With Analog or Internet Support |
Yes Only with Analog |
No | No |
| Burglar alarms | Yes With Analog or Internet Support |
Yes Only with Analog |
No | No |
| Traditional phones and phone systems | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Ad hoc reporting | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Voice mail to email | Yes | No | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Built-in conference calling | Yes | No | No | No |
| Superior Quality | ||||
| 24x7x365 call quality monitoring Star2Star monitors the quality of your phone calls from end-to-end around the clock in our Network Operating Center with StarWatch. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| Service desk for end-to-end quality management with Phone, Web, and Email support. Staffed around the clock. | Yes | No | No | No |
| Quality of Service managed on phones, LAN and Internet connection | Yes | Partial | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Compression: Because we have an end-to-end solution we are able to provide a higher quality compression and get 250% more calls on your Internet connection than our competition. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| End-to-end management and monitoring of jitter | Yes | No | No | No |
| End-to-end management and monitoring of echo | Yes | No | No | No |
| End-to-end management and monitoring of latency | Yes | No | No | No |
| Carrier Grade Cisco Network delivering superior call quality in the data center | Yes | No | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Connect to the traditional phone Network | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Guaranteed Reliability | ||||
| 99.9% Reliability Guarantee | Yes | No | No | No |
| 24x7x365 end-to-end System Health Monitoring: Backup that leverages a monitoring system to determine if there is a system fault anywhere in the call path. |
Yes | No | No | No |
| Service Desk Phone for an end-to-end solution with Web, and Email support - staffed around the clock. | Yes | No | No | No |
| Backup with redundant Internet connectivity in case data center connectivity fails. | Yes | No | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Backup with redundant phone carriers in case one carrier fails. | Yes | No | No | No |
| Analog Line backup on VoIP connection with automatic rerouting of calls. | Yes | Not Backed up | No | No |
| Disaster recovery to backup lost facility or cable cut. | Yes | No | No | No |
| Backup providing data center bypass. | Yes | No | No | No |
| Data center infrastructure backup with 100% Redundant Cisco Network at Tier-1 data center. | Yes | No | Maybe | Maybe |
| Dramatic Savings | ||||
| Unlimited free voice mail | Yes | No | No | No |
| PBX features are free (included) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Unlimited extensions | Yes | No | No | No |
| Domestic savings | Yes, 50% | No | No | No |
| International savings: Low cost international calling generally less than 5 cents per minute to call countries like the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada etc. |
Yes, 90% | No | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Equipment savings | Yes, 75% | No | No | No |
| Immediate return on investment | Yes | No | No | No |
| Financing available | Yes 36 or 48 mos |
Sometimes | Sometimes | Sometimes |
| Net Positive Cash Flow | Yes | No | No | No |