Managed VoIP for Verkada: Closing the Last Gap in the Modern Security Stack

For a multi-site healthcare provider running 50 Verkada cameras and 35 access readers across Pennsylvania, the phone system was the last un-managed appliance in the security and IT estate. HTS Voice replaced the patchwork — a cloud PBX at headquarters, a legacy on-prem system at two clinical sites, a third-party telecom reseller for SIP at the rest — with a single managed UCaaS contract at $7,950 per month, a 16% reduction on the prior run-rate, and one support number the IT director actually calls.

The phone system is the last appliance to leave the server room

The mid-market voice market is in a structural shift, and most IT directors are paying for the friction of being in the middle of it. Gartner's tracking puts global UCaaS (unified communications as a service — voice, video, chat, and collaboration delivered from the cloud) at $78 billion in 2026, on a path to $277 billion by 2034, with 90% of organizations expected to rely on cloud telephony by 2028, up from 30% in 2025 [1]. Mordor Intelligence sizes the same market at $70.56 billion in 2026, growing to $221.14 billion by 2031 at a 25.67% CAGR [2]. Grand View Research pegs 2026 at $128.9 billion at a 17.7% CAGR [3]. The methodologies disagree; the direction does not.

The implication for an IT director who has already moved cameras, access control, and the network to a managed model is direct. Every other device on the network now has an SLA, a dashboard tile, and a person on call. The desk phone does not.

The fragmented vendor stack is the IT director's day job

Phones from a telecom reseller, cameras from a security integrator, access control from a different integrator, network from a third MSP, IT support from a fourth. Datto's State of the MSP 2025 found 63% of MSPs prefer fewer vendors, and 46% are prioritizing vendor consolidation [4]. The customers buying Verkada and HTS Managed are not asking for the next best-of-breed product; they are asking for fewer contracts.

A 100-user on-prem PBX carries a five-year TCO of approximately $240,400, or $40.07 per user per month, once hardware, support contracts, SIP trunks, power and cooling, and the 0.25 FTE needed to keep it running are all in [5]. The cloud equivalent typically lands at $25 per user per month, a 30–40% reduction [5]. Published case studies put average savings at $197,914 across businesses of all sizes, with three-year NPV of $623,000 and a four-month payback [6][7]. The number that does not show up in the line item is the labor: research consistently shows a 20–30% reduction in time spent on internal coordination when chat, presence, and click-to-call are integrated into the UC client [6][7]. The cost surprise is in the add-ons, not the seat price — published entry prices for direct UCaaS vendors understate the out-the-door total by 2–4× once AI, call recording, and queue features are layered in [10].

E911 compliance is the cost the income statement does not show

The other cost of a legacy phone system is regulatory. Kari's Law, effective February 16, 2020, requires every multi-line telephone system to allow direct dialing of 911 without a prefix and to notify on-site personnel with the caller's location [8]. RAY BAUM'S Act Section 506 requires the call to carry a dispatchable location — a street address plus building, floor, and room — for fixed devices by January 6, 2021, and for non-fixed devices by January 6, 2022 [8][9]. Non-compliance penalties run to $10,000 per violation plus $500 per day [8].

For a healthcare operator, the fine is not the binding constraint. The binding constraint is a wrongful-death claim anchored on a failed 911 dispatch. An on-prem PBX installed before February 16, 2020 is grandfathered until a "significant" upgrade triggers compliance — and the moment a clinical site adds a new line, replaces a phone, or moves a desk, the clock starts. HTS configures every extension with a dispatchable location at provisioning, flags missing or stale locations in the dashboard, and keeps the E911 compliance audit trail inside HTS Comply, where a SOC 2 or HIPAA auditor can pull the evidence in one click.

What managed UCaaS for Verkada customers actually looks like

HTS is an active Intermedia managed partner, and HTS Voice is delivered on the Intermedia Unite platform with HTS as the provider of record: provisioning, porting, configuration, support, billing, and the wiring into the HTS dashboard. Intermedia list pricing for the Teams tier is $22.99 per user per month, $27.99 for Pro, and $32.99 for Enterprise on annual billing [11][12]. HTS resells with a managed-services layer on top: $25 for Teams, $30 for Pro, $45 for Enterprise per extension per month, on a single agreement line in ConnectWise (the same agreement line as cameras, access control, and network operations) [18].

The integration with the rest of the HTS Managed suite is wired into the platform, not described in a slide deck. When AccessOps receives a hire event from the customer's HRIS, it provisions the Verkada badge, the NetOps 802.1X credential (the IEEE standard that authenticates a device before it joins the corporate network), the M365 mailbox, and the HTS Voice extension in a single transaction. On termination, all four systems revoke together. The Verkada intercom at the front door is SIP-native and validated against the same provider matrix Cisco, FreePBX, and RingCentral sit on [17]; HTS Voice is the SIP provider for the intercom call flow, and the lobby camera and the lobby phone become one record. A Verkada intercom call creates the call-recording log entry, attaches the camera clip, and the receptionist can pull both from one screen.

The pricing for the add-ons a cloud phone system for healthcare actually needs is published. Contact Center Pro at $95 per concurrent seat per month, Contact Center Elite at $135, SIP trunking at $22 per channel per month for unlimited domestic [13][15]. For a customer keeping an existing on-prem PBX and replacing only the phone lines, Intermedia SIP typically runs $15–$25 per channel per month for unlimited domestic, or $0.005–$0.020 per minute on metered plans [15][16]. Microsoft Teams Phone with HTS-managed Direct Routing — the wedge for every M365-anchored customer in the HTS book — lands at $18 per user per month all-in, including the HTS managed-services layer [22].

A worked example: a six-site healthcare customer

The healthcare group runs six clinical sites, ~50 Verkada cameras, ~35 access readers, and ~350 active badges. The phone system is the patchwork from the lede. HTS Voice replaces it with 200 extensions on the Pro tier, 120 desk phones at a $6-per-device blended rate, and 10 Contact Center Pro seats: $30 × 200 + $6 × 120 + $95 × 10 = $7,950 per month, or $95,400 per year. The patchwork was running at roughly $9,500 per month. The line-item savings are 16%; the operational savings are larger. The IT director's quarterly review shows one number, not five. The compliance officer's evidence pack includes call-recording retention, E911 configuration, and the dispatchable-location audit log without an extra project. The terminated employee is off every system — badge, network credential, M365 mailbox, phone extension — within 60 seconds.

HTS Voice ships inside the HTS Managed product line: one agreement, one dashboard, one support number. That is the recommended approach for any mid-market customer with 5–50 sites, 25–500 extensions, and a phone system that nobody owns end-to-end.

Curious what HTS Voice would look like against your current phone bill? Send us your extension count, your sites, and your existing carrier list — we will run the same worked example, including the E911 exposure, and walk through the numbers together.

Harris Technology Services (HTS) · https://www.hts.pro · Support: support@hts.pro

Sources

1. Gartner via Fortay, UCaaS Trends 2026 (2026).
2. Mordor Intelligence, UCaaS Market Report (January 2026).
3. Grand View Research, UCaaS Market Report (2026).
4. Datto, State of the MSP Industry 2025 Look-Ahead (2025).
5. Techmode, On-Premise vs Cloud Phone Systems (2025–2026).
6. RingCentral, ROI of Cloud Communications (Frost & Sullivan commissioned, 2024–2025).
7. 8x8 / Frost & Sullivan, Compelling Business Case for Cloud Communications (2018 baseline, refreshed 2024).
8. FCC, Kari's Law and RAY BAUM'S Act 911 Direct Dialing Requirements (47 CFR § 9.3).
9. Intrado, State & Federal E911/MLTS Regulations (2025–2026).
10. Dialnote, RingCentral vs Zoom Phone vs Vonage (2026); Top5VoIPProviders, Vonage vs RingCentral vs Zoom Phone (2026).
11. Intermedia, Unite Pricing / Unite Product Page (2026).
12. G2, Intermedia Unite Pricing 2026 (April 2026).
13. Intermedia, Contact Center Partner Datasheet (2024–2025).
14. IPComms, SIP Trunking Pricing Guide 2026.
15. PBX.im, SIP Trunking Pricing 2026.
16. Verkada, Intercom Interoperability Manual (2025–2026).
17. HTS, ConnectWise Knowledge Base § 9 — HTS Tenant ID Reference (2026-07-15).
18. Microsoft, Teams Phone Product Page (2026); Panterra Networks, Teams Calling Plans Pricing (July 2026).