Working notes from running a UK 3CX managed service. Honest cost breakdowns, structural commentary on telecoms pricing, and the things we wish someone had told us before we signed our first phone contract.
We got full sight of a complete procurement record — a 35-person firm leaving a dying Mitel PBX for hosted 3CX. The trigger, how a careful buyer shops, the nine contract questions worth stealing, and the cutover nobody warns you about.
Read the post →A network RTT number is not what your customers hear. What mouth-to-ear latency really is, where the milliseconds go, why 15ms vs 30ms is inaudible in healthy conditions, and why we still lead with it.
Read the post →The 2G sunset, ISDN Stop Sell, contract end dates — most telecoms “deadlines” are noise. The BT PSTN switch-off is the one hard network deadline UK businesses actually need to plan around, and eighteen months is shorter than it sounds.
Read the post →Most managed 3CX quotes are designed not to be compared. Here are the five real cost components, the opaque-bundle trick, the SC over-spec lever, and the five questions to ask before you sign.
Read the post →30 minutes, no commitment. We’ll read it with you, line by line.
Line-by-line review of the quote in front of you, our own benchmark numbers for each component, and an honest verdict — even if it’s “stay with your current provider”.
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sales@portphones.co.uk
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This blog is where we work out loud about the structural reasons UK telecoms pricing is opaque, what we’ve learned from real signed quotes, and the 3CX 2026 pricing tier maths. If a post sparks a question about a quote you’ve been given, the fastest route to an answer is the audit.