This is the second of a three part series on hosted voice technology. Click here to read part one.

Given the advantages of cloud-based voice, its growing popularity among businesses is easy to understand. So, too, is the increasing number of vendors entering the market, each offering its own hosted voice service. How to choose among them? It's an important question and, for many companies, bound to be a challenging one. But coming up with the right answer doesn’t have to be difficult.

To start, consider that hosted voice really involves two components: the voice service itself, and the network it runs over. Many vendors offering cloud-based voice sell it as a standalone product. But it really doesn’t stand alone, for once you buy the voice service, you have to integrate it with a network. That means two services, from two vendors, with two infrastructures and two support organizations. It also means the integration may not be as seamless, easy, or efficient as you’d like. And if problems arise, you’ll first have to determine whose domain it falls under – which only delays the solution.

A provider that can bundle hosted voice with the network can offer a compelling value proposition. When the two key components of cloud-based voice are operated by the same vendor, the integration is built in before you make your first call. Bundled voice and network also means that you have a single point of contact for support—no small thing for businesses that need their questions answered quickly and their troubleshooting done immediately.

Even more importantly, when there is a dedicated network for voice traffic, your calls aren’t fighting for bandwidth with everything traveling over your data network.

A dedicated voice network is included in the price, which means not only performance advantages over a la carte solutions, but often financial ones, too. And by monitoring and managing the network itself, the provider ensures that voice traffic moves efficiently. That lets it offer service-level agreements guaranteeing that the performance you need is the performance you get.

Today’s businesses want to grow their footprint and their opportunities—not their headaches. A provider that can offer voice services with cloud capabilities helps companies to focus less on their technology—and more on their future.