Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
Is VoIP cheaper than a landline for a small business in Texas?
Usually, yes, once you compare total spend and not one copper line against one VoIP seat. A cloud system replaces per-line charges, the phone system in the closet, vendor service calls and separate conferencing tools. The exceptions are fire alarm, elevator and some fax lines, which may need to stay on a landline for now.
Book a DemoUpdated October 2026 · Cleod9 Voice, Arlington, TX
Short answer
Usually yes, once you compare total spend rather than one copper line against one VoIP seat.
What VoIP removes
Per-line charges, the phone system in the closet, vendor trip charges and separate conferencing subscriptions.
What VoIP adds
A dependency on office internet and power, plus 911 location records that have to stay current.
Lines to keep
Fire alarm, elevator and some fax lines may need to stay until their service companies sign off.
Why a landline bill and a VoIP quote are hard to compare
A small law firm in Arlington might have three copper lines, a fax line, an alarm line and a phone system in the back closet that the same vendor has serviced for years. Its landline cost is not one number. It is a carrier bill, a long-distance charge, the vendor’s invoices and maybe a conference bridge on somebody’s card.
A VoIP quote prices something else entirely: people, numbers and features on one cloud system. Put the two side by side without translating them and you will either overstate the savings or miss them.
Counted honestly, VoIP usually comes out ahead for the phones people talk on, but not for every wire in the building. This page walks through the comparison in words, item by item, and then the lines that should stay on copper for now. For every input that goes into a quote, see our guide to business phone system cost in DFW.
Paying for a landline
A landline bill charges for lines. Each copper line carries its own monthly charge, and the number of lines limits how many calls can happen at once. If the front desk is on one call and a second customer dials the main number, that caller gets a busy signal or rolls to another line you also pay for.
Features and usage are often billed on top: forwarding or hunting on a line, long distance, toll-free minutes, and a conference bridge from someone else entirely. Each line also carries its share of taxes and 911 fees.
In many multi-line offices, a phone system in a closet ties those lines to the desk phones, and a vendor services it. Adding an extension for a new hire or moving a phone to another desk can mean a service call and a trip charge, and over a year those visits add up.
Paying for VoIP
A VoIP bill is built around people and numbers rather than copper pairs. Each person who needs an extension gets one, and on Cleod9’s platform that extension rings wherever the person is working: a desk phone, a desktop or browser app, or the mobile app.
Ring groups, an auto attendant and conferencing run on the same system as the calls. Cleod9 also puts video meetings, browser-based web collaboration, two-way texting from the business number and the included x-bees team app on that platform, so separate subscriptions can be dropped.
The phone system moves out of the closet. Cleod9 maintains and updates the platform remotely, with no in-person update visits. What VoIP adds is a dependency on the office internet connection and on power, which a fair comparison has to count.
Line by line: where the money moves
Here is the same office, item by item. There are no dollar figures, because yours depend on your carrier, your headcount and your contract, but the direction of each line is usually easy to see once you lay it out.
Write your own version of this list with your current bills in hand. If you want the longer savings argument, Cleod9’s article on the return on switching to cloud communication lays it out.
- Lines: a monthly charge for every copper line becomes a charge built around the people and numbers you keep.
- Long distance and toll-free: ask how each is billed on both sides, because usage charges are easy to miss in a comparison.
- The closet system: service calls and trip charges for an on-site phone system give way to remote maintenance and updates.
- Conferencing and video: a separate bridge or meeting subscription can be dropped once the new platform covers it.
- Internet: this line may go up if a speed test shows the connection cannot carry your calls and video.
- Equipment: desk phones are optional, but count any PoE switch and battery backup the office will need.
Copper is being retired, and that changes the math
For decades a business line in Texas meant a pair of copper wires running from the phone company to a box on the side of your building. Phone companies are now retiring copper in many areas and moving customers to fiber, wireless or internet-based service. The details vary by carrier and by street, so the only reliable source for your building is your own carrier.
That shift matters to the cost question in two ways. Staying on copper may not be a choice you get to make forever, so the real comparison is between moving on your schedule and moving on the carrier’s. And if the carrier’s replacement for your copper is itself a digital line, you will be on internet-based service either way, and the question becomes whether you get a full business phone system out of the move.
Ask your current carrier, in writing, whether your lines are scheduled for retirement, what the replacement would be, and whether the rates or repair terms on your existing lines are expected to change. If the answer points toward a move, our plan for switching a DFW office from landlines to VoIP lays out the steps.
When a landline still makes sense
VoIP replaces the phones people talk on. It is not automatically the right answer for every wire in the building. Before you cancel anything, find these lines and talk to the companies that depend on them.
Fire alarm panels: a panel may report to its monitoring company over a phone line, so get that company’s sign-off before the line changes.
Elevator emergency phones: that phone exists so a trapped rider can reach help, so involve your elevator service company first.
Fax machines that must stay: if lenders, courts or pharmacies still fax you and the machine has to stay, one line may be simplest.
Card terminals and meters: older credit card terminals and postage meters sometimes dial out on a phone line, so check before cutover.
Keeping one or two of these lines does not change the answer for the rest of the office. Put their cost on the VoIP side of your comparison so the totals stay honest.
What VoIP adds that a landline did not need
The first is internet. One voice call needs about 100 Kbps down and 100 Kbps up, and a ten-person office that only makes calls needs about 1 Mbps each way, so many business connections already have room for calls alone. Video meetings need far more, and Cleod9 recommends planning for at least double the minimum on upload. Its guide to internet speed for VoIP and video calls has the full table, and the free C9 Speedtest shows where your office stands today.
The second is power. VoIP desk phones need power, often from a PoE network switch, and they need the internet connection to be up. A battery backup on the modem, router and network switch keeps them running through short outages. Because the call logic lives in the cloud, inbound calls can be rerouted to mobile apps or other numbers when the office is down, as long as that routing is set up in advance.
The third is 911. FCC rules require VoIP providers to explain how 911 works on their service, including that it may not work during a power or internet outage. Cleod9 supports Enhanced 911 with location information, and those location records have to be kept current, especially for remote and mobile users. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Walk the building before you compare
The surprise to avoid in a landline-to-VoIP comparison is a line nobody knew about. The cheapest protection against it is an hour with the bills and a flashlight.
Once you know what every line does, you can price the move accurately: which numbers port to VoIP, which lines stay, and what the office needs in network and power to run the new system well.
- Pull the last three carrier bills and list every number, including the ones nobody recognizes.
- Find what each line plugs into: desk phones, the fax, the alarm panel, the elevator, an old card terminal or a postage meter.
- Ask the alarm monitoring company how the panel can report if the copper line goes away.
- Add up a year of service calls to the vendor who maintains the phone system in the closet.
- Run the free C9 Speedtest from the office during a busy hour, not after everyone leaves.
- Ask for a VoIP quote that lists every fee, then compare it, plus the lines you will keep, with the full landline bills.
Common questions
Will we lose our phone numbers if we drop the landlines?
No. Existing numbers port to the new system. Simple ports are generally targeted at one business day, and a multi-line office should plan on a week or two from clean paperwork to cutover. The one rule that matters most: never cancel the old service before the port completes, because canceling releases the number. Running both systems in parallel during the port is the sensible approach, even though it means paying for both for a short time.
Is VoIP call quality as good as a landline?
It can be, and it depends mostly on your office network. Cleod9’s internet guide sets targets for your connection: latency under 150 ms, jitter under 30 ms and packet loss under 1%. A connection that meets those numbers during the workday should carry clear calls. Run the free C9 Speedtest from the office at a busy hour. Cleod9’s booking page also offers a free test drive, so ask what it includes and whether you can run it on your own connection with your own staff.
What happens to our fax number if we switch?
The number itself can port with the rest. The bigger question is whether you still need a fax machine at all. If only a few senders still fax you, ask the provider exactly how faxes will be sent and received on the new system and test it before cutover. If a machine has to stay in service and the new approach does not suit it, keeping one line for that machine is a reasonable answer.
Can our fire alarm or elevator phone move to VoIP?
Do not move either one on your own. Ask your alarm monitoring company how the panel can report if the copper line goes away, and ask your elevator service company the same about the emergency phone. Get their answers in writing and leave those lines alone until they confirm a plan. Keeping them on copper while the rest of the office moves to VoIP does not undo the savings elsewhere.
Are there taxes and fees on VoIP like there are on landlines?
Yes. Because interconnected VoIP pays into the federal Universal Service Fund, providers commonly show that contribution as its own line on the bill. You will also see state and local 911 fees and Texas sales tax, since telecom services are taxable here, and possibly provider fees such as regulatory recovery, activation, porting or equipment. Ask each provider to list all of them, or you end up comparing a fully taxed landline bill with an untaxed VoIP rate.
What happens to VoIP phones when the power goes out?
VoIP desk phones stop if the office loses power or internet, unless the modem, router and network switch are on battery backup, which keeps them up through short outages. For longer ones, the cloud keeps answering: inbound calls can be rerouted to staff mobile apps or other numbers, provided that routing is set up in advance. Also remember that 911 on VoIP may not work during a power or internet outage, so plan for that.
Talking to Cleod9
Start with the walk-through above: every line, what it plugs into, and which ones belong to an alarm panel, an elevator or a fax machine. Once that list exists, the cost comparison gets much simpler.
Existing numbers port to the Cleod9 VoIP cloud phone system, and Cleod9 supports its own customers locally, so the person you work with is in your time zone and can come on site if needed. Bring your list of lines and three months of carrier bills to the demo, and ask for a quote that shows which lines move to VoIP and which stay where they are.