Bake-Off: Small Business VoIP Contenders

Small businesses have limited technology budgets: It doesn't matter how feature-rich the VoIP product is if the up-front fees are too high. When watching every dollar spent, each little bit helps, such as analog line support and the ability to support other networking functions.

For a closer look at VoIP, the Test Center selected products from five vendors to see how well they cater to the small-business market. Reviewers tested the NetVanta 7100 from Adtran Inc., Quick Edition from Avaya Inc., Smart Business Communications System from Cisco Systems Inc., PBXtra from Fonality and Business Communications Manager 50 from Nortel Networks Corp.

Methodology
VoIP is often bundled in as a component in a larger unified communications solution. To put all the solutions on an equal playing field, the scope of this review was limited to testing the voice component. To participate in this comparison, the solution had to be affordable for a small-business budget, especially when considering up-front costs, support for analog lines and support for fewer than 100 users. All products were premise-based IP-PBX solutions.

Each product was rated on both technical and channel merits. For each product submission, reviewers stepped through the entire setup process to configure the system. After getting a working VoIP solution up and running, reviewers evaluated the ease with which other phones and mailboxes could be added. Advanced features, such as auto-attendant, groups and call escalation were also added.

For this comparative analysis, reviewers focused on the deployment activities and management options solution providers would face when rolling out the VoIP solution.

NEXT: Avaya Quick Edition