Point-CounterPoint: Hosted Voice vs. CPE is a an open debate between two bloggers: Mike Graves  and Dave Michels (of PinDropSoup).

Personally, I think Dave missed the boat. Two key points: in some cases, the phones, router, POE switch can be financed and rolled into the monthly charges. In many cases, this monthly recurring charge will be less than an ILEC or MSO Internet-Phone bundle.

VoIP has been sold most often as a cost savings over TDM. But the Hosted PBX model is about Total Cost of Ownership and Productivity in a tech heavy business with mobile human resources.

I was at the Volvo dealership having my car serviced today. Their outsourced (through ADP) tech had to disconnect the free wi-fi in the waiting area because the TDM T1 went down. But Bright House cable was still up. The dealership can't do much of anything with both Internet Access and a Tech person.

The other key point was that MITEL does indeed offer a hosted PBX service. And I believe that Avaya either has one or bought one through the Nortel purchase.

We have a mobile work force today. Everything is going Cloud. You need access to the Phjone system, email, apps, data, CRM, etc. Not much of that is premise based.

And if it was premised based, who would keep it updated, secure, backed up, etc.?

And that doesn't even mention all the features you get from a $250K switch that you wouldn't be able to buy for your business.