The steps, the timeline, and what to expect.
We ship them, you plug them in — no technician needed. Here's everything that happens from the day you say yes to the day your team is fully on the cloud.
Three steps that never change
Your phones arrive pre-associated with your account. Nothing to configure before they show up.
One cable from the wall, one to your PC. The phone sits in between — standard cabling, no new runs.
The phone calls the cloud, grabs its config, reboots. Start to finish: 5 to 6 minutes. Ready to make calls.
And if you need continuity from day one: we forward your existing number to a cloud number and have a basic auto-attendant running immediately — while everything else gets built alongside your live business.
Same dials, different spots — and a lot more features. That's why you're making the switch. There's a short adjustment period, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
What we will do is walk you through every step at your team's pace. Nobody gets surprised. Nobody gets a 30-minute information dump and then left to figure it out alone. We layer in new features as your team gets comfortable — apps, texting, home phones, AI tools — in the order that makes sense for how your business actually works.
"When you buy a new car, all the dials are in different spots — even though they're the same type of dials, doing the same things. And more. That's why you bought the new car."
Cloud phones do everything your old system does. They answer calls, transfer calls, go to voicemail. They just do it better, from anywhere, with a lot more on top. The adjustment is real. The payoff is real too.
For a small office, a single department, or anyone without a managed network: the whole process is plug-and-play. We ship, you plug in, the phone does the rest.
Your cloud phones are pre-associated with your account. The box also includes a power adapter if your switch doesn't support PoE.
Take the cable off the back of your PC, plug it into the phone. Use the included cable to plug the phone back into your computer. Wall → phone → PC.
PoE switch? The phone draws power through the cable. No PoE? Plug the included adapter into any wall outlet.
Once it hits the internet: reaches out to the cloud, identifies itself, downloads its full configuration, reboots. 5 to 6 minutes later — it's live.
Some cloud phone models support Wi-Fi. If a desk doesn't have a network port, the phone can connect wirelessly — enter your Wi-Fi credentials on the phone screen and the same self-provisioning process runs automatically.
Even before the desk phones arrive, your team can install the Intermedia Unite app on their iPhone, Android, Mac, or Windows laptop and start taking calls from their business number. The desk phone and the app stay in sync — same line, same voicemail, same everything.
You keep every number you have today. We port mains, DIDs, fax lines, and toll-free. While porting is in progress (typically ~10 business days), we forward your existing number to the new cloud system so callers never notice a gap.
If your business has an IT department, an MSP on a maintenance agreement, or a network with VLANs — we coordinate with them before anything ships. Full stop.
We don't show up and start touching things without asking. Your IT team knows your network. We know the phones. Together, the install goes smoothly and nobody steps on anybody's toes.
Voice traffic is sensitive to network configuration in ways that data traffic isn't. A misconfigured VLAN or a firewall rule that blocks SIP can mean choppy calls or calls that won't connect at all. Working with your IT team upfront catches these things before they become your problem on day one.
For businesses moving all users and layering in an AI auto-attendant, voiceover production, or CRM integration. Typically 4–6 weeks from kickoff to live.
A manager or whoever owns call routing today walks us through it: who answers, how calls move between phones, ring groups, after-hours behavior, voicemail routing. We turn that into a written call flow document.
Before phones ship, your team receives everything they need: app install guides, user setup instructions, what to expect on day one, and who to contact if anything comes up.
We provision the cloud system, produce voiceovers, configure the auto-attendant routing, and connect your CRM — while your existing phones stay fully live. Nobody is without phones during the transition.
We forward your numbers, flip the switch, and stay on-call through the transition. Monday morning your team is on the new system. We watch the first week closely and adjust anything that needs tuning.
Call center deployments, custom AI receptionists, and deep CRM integrations don't have a fixed timeline — every business is different. What stays constant is the process: we scope it together, we document every decision, and nobody moves forward without sign-off.
These installs layer on top of the same core foundation: ship, plug in, activate. The phones go live quickly. The sophistication — agent queues, supervisor monitoring, AI-voiced attendants, live whisper coaching, real-time reporting — gets added layer by layer, tested at each stage, so your team isn't overwhelmed on day one.
No commitment, no pressure. Fifteen minutes and we'll tell you which path fits your business, what it costs, and what to expect.