Business Phone Systems in Philadelphia
Enter your zip code and tell us about your staff, your sites and what the phones must do. Philadelphia providers review the request and send quotes on hosted VoIP, SIP trunking or a replacement system.
Old buildings, new phones
Philadelphia has a lot of offices that were never meant to be offices. A law practice in a converted rowhouse off Rittenhouse Square or a dental office in a Fishtown building: the wiring in these places was done by whoever was available in 1985. When a provider comes out to quote a phone system, ask them to look at the jacks and the closet, and not only the floor plan. A cable run that was fine for analog lines may not carry a modern network.
Hosted VoIP suits these buildings because it asks so little of them. A router, a switch and phones that plug into jacks you already have. No rack, no cabinet, nothing to hide.
Eds, meds and law
Hospitals and universities are among the biggest employers in Philadelphia. University City, with Penn and Drexel and the medical campuses around them, has thousands of staff who work in offices, labs and clinics. Jefferson and Temple draw in their own clusters of practices. Around all of them sit independent specialists, billing offices, research groups and vendors who spend all day on the phone with the big institutions.
For those smaller shops, a phone system is the front door. Look for call queues that keep patients out of voicemail and a mobile app so a physician can pick up the practice line from home. The system should also bring up the chart when a call comes in. Fax comes up again and again here, as referrals and authorizations still arrive that way. Ask any provider to explain exactly how fax will work after the move.
Center City law and accounting firms care about different things: call recording for certain clients, and voicemail that goes straight to email.
Across the river and out to the suburbs
Camden, just over the Delaware, has port-related businesses and medical offices. A company with a Philadelphia office and a Camden warehouse is working in two states, with two sets of area codes, and ought to ask how the provider handles calling between them. Norristown, the seat of Montgomery County, has courts and county offices, and the law offices that cluster around them. Chester, in Delaware County, has a working riverfront and a stadium area, plus small industrial and service businesses.
Will a provider travel to those places for an install? Fair question. Some will ship phones and walk you through setup on a video call. Others send someone, and you should ask if that visit is included.
Small businesses in the neighborhoods have their own style. A Passyunk restaurant, a South Philly auto shop, a Germantown daycare and a roofer in the Northeast all want the same thing: a main number that a real person answers, and a way to send calls to a cell phone without giving out the owner's private number. An after-hours message is a bonus. Hosted plans do that with a few clicks. Ask the provider to show you the setting screen. If it takes a phone call to the provider to change your hours, that is a bad sign.
The port, the airport and the Navy Yard
The port on the Delaware and the airport on the southwest edge pull in freight forwarders and cargo handlers, and the Navy Yard adds a business campus nearby. They need a phone setup that works on shift schedules, with queues that route to whoever is on and a mobile app for people who are out on the lot. For these businesses, a hosted system is usually less work than keeping a full-sized PBX around.
Winter, storms and the connection
Comcast is based in Philadelphia, and its network reaches much of the city, while Verizon has fiber in a good share of it. Both are options for businesses, and some buildings have more. If your office is in a rowhouse district, check that fiber is actually available at the address. It is not always there even when the neighbors tell you it is. For a business that depends on phones, a second line from a different carrier is inexpensive insurance against a cut in the street.
Philadelphia gets nor'easters and the occasional summer thunderstorm that takes out power on a block. Set a forwarding plan before you need one, so that your main number rings on cell phones when the building is dark.
Most Philadelphia offices share a building with other tenants and a landlord who controls the riser. Before the install date, ask the property manager who can pull a new line and when the freight elevator is available. Delays in this city usually come from the building, not the phone company.
What the provider should explain
Ask how emergency calls are routed from your site, and how remote workers update their address. Ask what happens if you grow from eight to eighteen users, and what the cancellation terms are, in plain words. The best providers answer quickly and do not make you feel dumb for asking.
Do not wait for your old lines to be cut off. Carriers are pulling back from copper, and numbers can take weeks to port. Starting early means you choose the date.
