The most important step in setting up a new phone system has nothing to do with phones.

Step Zero: Talk to a Provider Who Listens Before They Quote

Every other “how to set up hosted PBX” article on the internet starts with bandwidth calculators and network diagrams. We’re going to start with the thing that actually matters.

The single biggest factor in whether your new phone system works well is whether your provider understood your business before they touched a single setting.

How PBX hackers make money with international call fraud, what to do when your phone system is compromised, and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

This Happens More Than You’d Think

As a VoIP provider, we hear this more often than we’d like: a customer calls in a panic because the phone system they set up years ago — or that some former employee set up, or some former IT company set up — has been compromised. The hackers are using it to place international calls, sometimes thousands of them, racking up charges that can hit four or five figures before anyone notices.

Your phone number is yours. Here’s how to take it with you when you switch providers — and how to avoid the gotchas.

What Is Number Porting?

Number porting is the process of moving your existing phone number from one provider to another. It’s a legal right — the FCC requires carriers to let you take your number with you — and it means you don’t have to change your business number when you switch phone systems. (If you want to understand the surprisingly complex infrastructure behind phone numbers — rate centers, the NPAC, why porting involves so many steps — we wrote a deep dive on how phone numbers actually work.)

The problem with remote work isn’t the work — it’s the phones. Here’s how to fix that.

The Problem You Already Know About

Your team is partly remote, partly in the office, or some shifting combination of both. The work gets done. Meetings happen over video. Email and chat keep things moving.

But the phones are a mess.

Remote employees give out their personal cell numbers because there’s no other option. Customers call the office and nobody can reach the person working from home. The receptionist takes messages and emails them. When someone does pick up on their cell, the caller ID shows a random personal number instead of the business name. And when that employee eventually leaves? Their personal number — the one your customers have been calling for two years — walks out the door with them.

Your calls should sound like calls. If they don’t, the problem is almost always fixable — and it’s almost never what you think.

First: Your Internet Is Probably Fine

Let’s get this out of the way. Most businesses that are considering hosted PBX already have internet that can handle it. Voice calls don’t use nearly as much bandwidth as people assume — a single call needs roughly 100 kbps in each direction. If your office can stream a YouTube video without buffering, you can make phone calls over the internet.

Your phone system should be something you never think about — like electricity. Here’s how hosted PBX makes that possible.

You Probably Already Use VoIP. You Just Don’t Know It.

Here’s a secret the telecom industry doesn’t love to admit: VoIP won. Years ago. Your cell phone? VoIP under the hood. That desk phone plugged into your office network? Almost certainly VoIP. Unless you’re still running copper lines from the phone company, your voice is already traveling as data.