Cader NetworksThe change in one sentence
Instead of phones plugging into wall sockets and using copper wires, they plug into your broadband router and use the internet. Everything else flows from that single shift.
Cost, usually lower, occasionally higher
For most small businesses, hosted VoIP works out cheaper than the line rental plus call charges they were paying on copper. Inclusive UK landline and mobile minutes come as standard on most business VoIP plans, which used to be a separate paid add-on.
It can go the other way for businesses with lightly-used single lines, if you only make a few calls a month, you might not save on raw call costs. But you'll usually pick up features (recording, mobile apps, hunt groups) that you'd have paid extra for on the old line.
Features you didn't have before
Hosted VoIP gives you, by default, things that used to require an expensive on-site PBX:
- Mobile and desktop softphone apps, answer your office number from your phone
- Hunt groups and call-routing rules
- Voicemail to email
- Call recording (compliance-friendly)
- Reporting on call volumes and durations
- Quick line additions when you grow without an engineer visit
For many of our small-business customers, the mobile app alone is the killer feature, the office number rings on a phone wherever they are.
Reliability, the honest comparison
The traditional copper line had one advantage: it kept working in a power cut. Hosted VoIP needs both broadband and power, so if either fails the phones stop. That's the real trade-off.
What we do about it: design business installs with optional 4G failover that takes over if the main broadband line drops, and configure call diverts to a mobile so calls reach you even during an outage. Battery backup units are available as an optional extra for emergency-call resilience. The net effect on most businesses is better reliability than the copper line they replaced, once the resilience is designed in.
What can go wrong if VoIP is done badly
Most VoIP horror stories trace back to a poorly-configured router, the wrong upstream bandwidth, or no QoS prioritising voice traffic. Cheap "free trial" VoIP plans shipped with default settings on a domestic router will give you bad calls.
Done right, business-grade router, QoS, suitable upstream bandwidth, multi-supplier carrier resilience. VoIP call quality is consistently better than the old copper line.
What we do for businesses moving across
We move your numbers, configure your phone system (or supply one if needed), test 999 and out-of-hours diverts with you, and review any non-voice services on the line (alarms, lifts, card terminals). For a typical SME the migration takes 2–4 weeks end-to-end and there's no service gap when we switch over. See our business VoIP page.
We handle hosted VoIP migrations for businesses across north Wales, Ceredigion and Powys — from single-line independents through to multi-site operations with dozens of users.