Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) Providers

What is Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)?

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) centralizes and delivers business Unified Communication (UC) tools such as voice, video, chat, and collaboration in one cloud-based platform. With UCaaS, teams can seamlessly and efficiently manage all their communication channels in one place and easily toggle between phone calls, instant messages, and video meetings throughout the day without having to access and manage multiple systems or tools. UCaaS is a cloud-based system, so employees can access communication tools and features on any device with an internet connection to stay seamlessly connected while traveling or working remotely.

UCaaS is popular among companies of all types and sizes, due to benefits such as:

  • Improved internal and external business communications, enabling remote and hybrid work,
  • Reduced operating costs,
  • Increased team productivity and efficiency,
  • Enhanced employee collaboration and content sharing,
  • Increased control of business communication workflows.

UCaaS systems are hosted, managed, and maintained by the provider, so companies do not need to invest in any costly hardware or build and maintain the IT infrastructure needed to support unified communications. UCaaS vendors also manage system updates, upgrades, and security, so companies always have the most updated, secure, cloud-based communication tools available in one interface.

While UCaaS software offers substantial communication functionality on its own, it can also be integrated with other business systems, such as contact center software and Customer Experience (CX) tools, to further streamline an organization's internal communications and customer-facing workflows.

Key Components of UCaaS

The key components of UCaaS systems include voice, video conferencing, messaging, and collaboration.

  • Voice: UCaaS includes integrated phone systems (VoIP) software to facilitate inbound and outbound calls and provide extensive feature sets for making, receiving, and managing calls. The voice features typically included in UCaaS solutions include: 
    • Voice Calling
    • Conference Calling
    • Caller ID
    • Toll-Free & International Numbers
    • Voicemail
    • Voicemail Transcription
    • Call Forwarding
    • Call Routing
    • Call Blocking
    • Call Tagging
    • Call Queuing
    • Call Recording
    • Auto-Attendant
    • Do Not Disturb
    • Busy Lamp Field (BLF)
  • Messaging: UCaaS systems include internal messaging tools to help employees stay connected across various channels including:
    • 1:1 Chat
    • Group Chat
    • SMS Text Messaging
  • Video Conferencing: UCaaS includes integrated video conferencing software to facilitate video meetings and improve communications with virtual, face-to-face collaboration. The video conferencing features typically offered in UCaaS systems include:
    • High-Definition Video and Audio
    • Webcam Capabilities
    • 1:1 Video Meetings
    • Team Video Meetings
    • Presentations
    • Whiteboard
    • Screen Sharing
    • File Sharing
    • Video Meeting Recording
    • Note Taking
    • Virtual Backgrounds
    • Background Noise Cancellation

Interested to learn more about UCaaS? Please visit our UCaaS FAQs.

Top 10 UCaaS Providers

RingEX / Vonage / Zoom / 8x8 X Series / Fuze / GoToConnect / Avaya UCaaS / Ooma Enterprise / Cisco Webex / 3CX

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Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) Topics

Learn more about Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) Software

What is the difference between UCaaS and CCaaS?

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provides cloud-based, centralized communication tools such as voice, video, and chat to streamline and improve internal business communications. On the other hand, Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) provides cloud-based contact center tools that are focused on enhancing customer or client interactions via phone, video, chat, or social media.

What is the difference between UCaaS and CPaaS?

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) systems provide a unified suite of prebuilt, cloud-based tools to facilitate business communications via voice, video, and chat, while Communication Platforms as a Service (CPaaS) offer APIs that businesses can use to integrate communication solutions within their existing software tools and other IT infrastructure.

In other words, UCaaS is a ready-to-use, all-in-one solution that is completely built and managed by a software vendor, while CPaaS is a communications API that requires programming expertise to integrate within existing software and infrastructure.

What is the difference between SIP trunking and UCaaS?

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking is a digital protocol for transferring voice calls and data over an internet connection. It is used by companies that want to leverage their existing phone systems and control their own PBX and internet telephony. Conversely, Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provides a hosted suite of unified communication and collaboration tools in a cloud platform that the provider maintains, updates, and secures.

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