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One of the key issues in implementing VoIP is cost. Organizations that implemented VoIP did so because of its real or perceived cost savings over traditional telephony. In this tight economy, small businesses are facing limited budgets. With a tighter budget, it means re-evaluating every dime that is spent, and, for many businesses, communications is one of the essentials that should not be compromised.

Even in a more stable economy, traditional telephone services are almost never a good choice. With an uncertain economic future, small businesses have to focus on reliable solutions that don’t compromise when it comes to service but are also easy on their balance sheets.

For small businesses, hosted VoIP is the best solution. In a hosted model, the business only needs to make a nominal investment in telephone sets that are compatible with VoIP, and does not have to worry about operating, maintaining or upgrading their network to support VoIP.

According to Aptela’s (News - Alert) recent white paper, “Is VoIP Right for My Agency?” small businesses opt for a hosted VoIP solution where the equipment and service management is hosted externally by the VoIP provider.

Hosted VoIP is very flexible for supporting branch offices, remote workers, and new sites as the business expands. All that's needed is to add handsets as you go when setting up a new office or adding more locations to your network. Regardless of how busy your phone lines get, hosted VoIP always works. Customers and employees will always be able to get dial tone, and they'll never get a busy signal, even during peak periods.

According to Aptela, businesses reap many benefits with hosted VoIP. Among those included are full PBX (News - Alert) functionality, seamless mobility, unified multi-site communications, easier telecommuting and ease of management.

Aptela stresses that small businesses make the right decision on a hosted VoIP service the first time. Every business has its own particular needs. Before any business contacts vendors, Aptela says to determine your calling habits, make sure your system is VoIP ready and determine your budget.

Aptela's service is delivered from the cloud and its features can be accessed - anywhere, anytime - through the Internet, traditional wire-line or mobile networks. According to a recent Gartner Study, “forty three percent of organizations will embrace cloud computing and virtualization in some form this year.” This number is staggering considering that just three percent are implementing some form of cloud computing currently.

The cloud allows businesses added growth flexibility with solutions for every sized business. Not to mention the applications that hosted VoIP provides, it is no wonder Gartner (News - Alert) is predicting a forty three percent adoption rate in 2011.

With hosted VoIP, businesses harness the best of both worlds by being a cost effective way to get PBX-caliber features without the risk or challenges of managing their network.