I run a small business and I'm also the guy in charge of IT as well because I have to keep costs low and I'm relatively technically savvy. But this business phone line stuff is so confusing, with terms like PBX box, SIP trunking, etc.
I did some basic searching on this subreddit and the general advice seems to be for small businesses, don't run your own pbx box b/c of complexity etc and go with a provider like https://voip.ms//business/pricing
But it seems crazy expensive. For example, if I use my business line 20 hours a week, that means that its 4,800 minutes a month or $48 a month at VOIP.ms level of pricing. Not to mention the fact that there is a $1 charge monthly just to have the number, and a separate charge (albeit small) for all calls received.
That just seems so much more expensive than a normal consumer cell phone bill that has ONLY voice.
I literally just need a separate business phone number that can work through a CISCO IP phone I bought secondhand for myself and a couple of employees. Is there any way to save on the monthly bill / basically only pay for the phone number itself? I can't imagine this day and age where everything goes over the internet and bandwidth is not charged on a usage based basis (at least in the US) that I need to be paying for IP phone calls "by the minute".
Help me understand if there is any way I can set this up using selfhosted or if I'm really looking to do something that is impossible. Just a complete noob to the business phone industry and the software stack needed to run it.
wrong sub. I'm sure there are some professional solutions out there already. Don't be cheap if you are running a business.