Intermedia Unite: A Viable Alternative to Google Voice?

At a time when Google doesn’t necessarily offer the most on point or immersive voice experience for today’s midsize enterprises, the search is on for the ultimate alternative. RingCentral, Dialpad, and a number of other leading companies have begun to throw their hats in the ring, showcasing a wide selection of video, audio, and collaboration tools.

While Intermedia Unite doesn’t have the same market impact or brand reputation as some of the other contenders in the environment today, it's a Channel contender in the UCaaS marketplace. This complete unified communications offering provides video conferencing, audio, and phone service solutions to businesses around the world, all from the same immersive platform.

Intermedia Unite was created on the belief that communication should be easy and accessible – designed for the incredible experience of both the user and the customer. As such, the solution includes more than 90 features to explore, ranging from auto attendant systems and voicemail to call recording tools, desktop, and mobile applications, and smartphones. Contact center services can also be built into the system for companies that need them.

Here’s your guide to Intermedia Unite as a possible alternative to Google Voice, Dialpad, and RingCentral.

Intermedia Unite: Key Features

Intermedia Unite shares its Unique Selling Point in its name. The tool is intended to combine business PBX phone systems, messaging, and other critical tools into a high-performance and easy-to-use environment. Through single-pane-of-glass convenience, today’s businesses can create a collaboration and communication stack that’s centered around the specific work style of the employee.

As a fully-integrated cloud-based system for communications and collaboration, Unite combines everything today’s businesses need into a single stack environment that works outside of the box.

Intermedia Unite combines phone systems, chat, screen sharing, video, and more, into a customizable experience that’s both high-performing and worry-free. The whole solution is backed by Intermedia’s Worry-Free strategy for easy onboarding.

The fully integrated system includes features like:

• Cloud PBX: Designed with a mixed combination of more than 90 features, the enterprise-grade phone system includes leading call quality and uptime, system management tools, and call reporting features. Everything you need is located in an easy-to-access web portal too.
  
  
• Team chat and SMS: The mobile and desktop apps included with Intermedia Unite allow team members to send and receive messages and attachments in real-time. All business and chat messages are synced across devices, and users can pin crucial information to the top of their chat history too.
  
  
• Desktop Apps: The Intermedia Unite experience comes with a free desktop app which aligns must-have collaboration tools into a single platform for better teamwork. Users can access insights into who is available in their environment. You can also send chat and text messages, receive and place calls, start video conferencing calls, and share files in the same place.
  
  
• Mobile Apps: The mobile app from Intermedia Unite instantly transforms an employee phone into a collaboration system. Apple and Android users can receive and place calls, check availability, and sync contacts at any time in the same place.
  
  
• Video conferencing: HD video conferencing will ensure that team members can still be part of face-to-face conversations when you’re working with a team of dedicated remote and mobile professionals.
  
  
• Remote Office: The preconfigured phones available with Intermedia will plug into any location with a broadband link. Additionally, the remote desk phones work just as seamlessly as the ones in the office, with access to all the same functionality and features as you’d get anywhere else in the company.
  
  
• Presence: Users in the Intermedia Unite environment can easily set their presence to ensure that other people know when they’re available. Desktop phones come with a BLF in the LCD field complete with presence information.
  
  
• Fax: Intermedia unit has its own virtual fax service where users can manage and receive online faxes through the web. Senders just need to dial a single number from their fax machine to get started.
  
  
• Voicemail: The virtual voicemail system included with Intermedia Unite can be accessed and managed according to the individual needs of each user. You can check and manage your voicemail from your desktop phone or mobile app with ease. There’s also the option to view transcribed messages via your mobile app.
  
  
• Screen-sharing: Give more context to every conversation with the option to share your screens with a computer desktop. You can share your screens in real-time externally or internally to enhance collaboration and decision making instantly.
  
  
• File backup: Securely store and backup your most important documents and data within the Intermedia environment. Once you have your files stored safely on the cloud, you’ll be able to share them across teams both inside and outside of your business.

Intermedia Unite: Benefits

For businesses in search of greater efficiency and productivity in today’s fast-paced world, Intermedia Unite helps to combine everything you need into a single environment. Through the forward-thinking cloud-based UC and collaboration service, organizations can access all the tools that they need at once. That means that you no longer have to waste time switching between apps when you want to use a video conferencing, chat, or screen sharing service.

As a cloud-based service, just like Google and the G-Suite, there’s no specialist equipment required to get started with Intermedia Unite. Additionally, companies can rest assured that they’re getting the enterprise-level reliability that they need. Intermedia offers 99.999% financially-backed service level agreements for all of its clients. You also get automatic re-routing built into your call system, just in case.

As your business evolves and grows, the Intermedia Unite solution is designed to scale with it. Whether you’re a small business or an enterprise company, you can order your service according to the number of users you need, with no need to guess about things like lines and requirements. Additionally, for business continuity purposes, Intermedia Unite automatically calls all of your endpoints and routes the call to a number that you choose in the vent that you can’t answer.

Businesses in search of greater productivity, and boosted collaboration experiences will be able to tap into everything from video conferencing technology to business SMS in the same place. What’s more, the automatic integrations between your corporate phone systems and mobile devices will help to make team members more productive than ever. All the while, because there’s no hardware to install, buy, or manage, you can save money too.

For companies that are still waiting to make the upgrade to a cloud PBX, Intermedia Unite can offer an excellent alternative to some of the other leading options on the market. Once the system is up and running, it’s managed entirely online, and you can order additional services through the simple online portal. Additionally, administrators can disable and enable user permissions, set up auto attendant functionality, and more, all in the same place.

Intermedia Unite: The HostPilot Administrator Console

One of the main features that makes Intermedia Unite such a compelling alternative to RingCentral, Google Voice, and Dialpad services, is it’s user-friendliness. The HostPilot Administrator console is built into the Intermedia experience, giving admins the opportunity to add and modify users according to their needs. Crucially, the HostPilot experience offers admins a broad view over every service that Intermedia offers, including archiving, email protection, backup, and encryption too.

Unlike other admin consoles, the Intermedia HostPilot experience is one of the most intuitive choices on the market. The granular and easy-to-use design makes it incredibly simple to navigate. What’s more, a key component of the HostPilot experience is the UserPilot solution. The UserPilot offering is a client-side application that allows admins to sync contracts from an on-site environment, or Active Directory cloud-based domain controller.

Although the HostPilot solution originally began with support for Microsoft only, a Google G Suite support system is now in the works. That means that if you’re looking to upgrade your Google experience with voice, but you don’t want to stick to the basics of Google Voice, Intermedia Unite could be the ideal option. The Google G Suite support system will provide capabilities that are similar to what you can get through Intermedia and Microsoft Office 365.

The Auto-attendant functionality of HostPilot from Intermedia is similar to the solutions you might have seen being offered from other competitors on the market. You can use it to do things like setting up your preferred call flow, or deciding how calls will be handled by members of your team when they come in. You can also choose where calls are routed depending on specific filters, and which outgoing messages should be played.

HostPilot also gives administrators the option to set up various admin levels for account holders within their domain, and provision self-service solutions for certain functions. For instance, you can let your team members change and update their passwords on their own, so there’s less work for your IT team to handle when you bring new people into the workplace.

Intermedia Unite: Verdict

So, how does Intermedia Unite stack up as an alternative to Google Voice, RingCentral, and Dialpad options for communication?

While it might not have the marketing prowess or brand recognition of some of the better-known service providers for hosted PBX available today, that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth your consideration. The Intermedia Unite experience is a competitive offering that’s definitely worth a look – particularly if you’re a mid-sized enterprise, Intermedia Unite provides excellent value at a lower price-point.

When you’re looking into which Intermedia Unite package might be best for you, it’s worth noting that all but the smallest of customers are likely to consider the Pro version to be the best solution. The Intermedia Unite Pro solution supports up to 30 attendees via video conferencing on the web. What’s more, the Pro package also comes with up to 100 gigabytes of SecuriSync file sharing and backup support through the Intermedia portfolio.

Many modern companies and partners offer the cloud PBX solution from Intermedia already. However, you might not have noticed this, as it’s available as a white-labeled offering. Over time, the solution has been growing rapidly into a more and more appealing solution for people who have examined the other tools on the market and still don’t think they have what they need to enhance their cloud calling environment.

Intermedia Unite is a robust and reliable calling platform that’s brimming with useful ways to bring your communication and collaboration strategy together. You can even rely on Intermedia Unite to help you ensure that you’re getting the best possible connections for your team members wherever you are. There’s a network testing service available for the brand that will check your network speed and internet connection. This service tells you how many users you’ll be able to support through your VoIP strategy, so you can upgrade your network if you need to.

If you’re looking for a valuable alternative to the Google Voice, RingCentral, or Dialpad options for cloud calling in the market today, it’s definitely worth giving Intermedia Unite a try.