Cloud based phone system is a relatively new term meaning phone service that is delivered through the internet. In this terminology, the “cloud” is the internet. A synonymous term would be Internet Phone System.

The word “system” in cloud based phone system implies a group of phones working together, though it sometimes is used to mean the system of interconnections to make a single phone work over the internet. Since it usually means a group of phones, a cloud based phone system or internet phone system, then, typically mean a business phone system.

Before the advent of VoIP, phone systems were all based on the public switched telephone network (PSTN) – the copper wires that made up the global phone network. It was still possible to have a cloud based phone system in the PSTN cloud, but the real use of the term came as part of the growing trend toward cloud computing and cloud services toward the end of the first decade of this century.

The main requirements of a cloud based phone system are the ability to deliver calls over the internet, route inbound calls to the correct workers inside a company, and provide telephony applications like voicemail and call recording.

Whether it’s called an internet phone system or a cloud based phone system, Virtual PBX delivers the deepest feature set and most reliable service. We invented the first hosted PBX, and have been adding features for over 15 years.