Business Choice 2021: Voice Over IP (VoIP) Systems

Slack and other team-messaging apps keep the office conversations flowing, but the phone call isn't dead. Businesses large and small need reliable phone systems, and these days, that's a Voice over IP (VoIP) service—a virtual or cloud PBX, if you will.

This year, 14 major business VoIP companies made the cut to be included in our Business Choice survey. While the competition is fierce at the top, there's only one winner, and it's a service that readers have recommended for almost a decade.

Voice Over IP (VoIP) Providers for 2021

As workers retreated to home offices in 2020, internet-based productivity services skyrocketed in popularity, from video conferencing to VoIP providers. That's the case for the top two companies in our survey, Ooma and RingCentral, both of which see their scores improve over the last year.

But only one dominates: OomaOoma, which earns a 9.0 (out of 10) for overall satisfaction and top scores in every category we asked about. Even when another company gives it serious competition—such as the free Google Voice, which receives a 9.0 for cost/value—Ooma stays ahead (it earns a 9.3 for cost/value). Click through the charts below to see all the metrics.

Ooma earns several incredible scores over 9.0, not only for satisfaction and cost, but also installation/setup (9.2), reliability (9.1), ease of use (9.3), call quality (9.1), system management (9.1), and the likelihood to be recommended to a colleague (9.1). Ooma also features a lot of products that best serve the small office/home office (SOHO), as well as the SMB and small enterprise crowd.

It might seem like there isn't much to say about the rest, but you won't be disappointed with this year's Business Choice runner-up, RingCentral. Its scores are all high 8s, except for tech support, which comes in at a still-respectable 8.4. It also lands within a fifth of a point to Ooma on things like reliability and call quality—measures that are all-important in the business world.

As for the rest, middling to low would sum up most of what you see, with a couple of interesting exceptions, such as RCN and Microsoft both having an 8.8 out of 10 for reliability, and Spectrum's 8.8 for ease of use, plus an 8.6 for install and call quality.

But if you're talking to an IT pro about VoIP, you can't go wrong with Ooma.

For more, read The Best Business VoIP Providers for 2021The Best Business VoIP Providers for 2021.

Full Results

The PCMag Business Choice survey for VoIP was in the field from February 1, 2021, to February 22, 2021. For more information on how our surveys are conducted, read the survey methodology.

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About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

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