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Astound Hosted Voice vs Qrystal comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Astound Hosted Voice
Ranking in Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qrystal
Ranking in Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP
5th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP category, the mindshare of Astound Hosted Voice is 5.6%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qrystal is 2.5%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Astound Hosted Voice5.6%
Qrystal2.5%
Other91.9%
Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP
 

Featured Reviews

BF
IT Director at a university with 201-500 employees
Admin features make it easy to customize and change, while Voicemail Transcription is fast and accurate
The most valuable feature is the admin platform that we work with. It allows us a very centralized approach for doing things and it allows us to manage and control everything right from the very top. We could do that before, but the features that we have with RCN seem more extensive than the previous company that we worked with. The Voicemail Transcription is more accurate than what we had with our previous company. Also, and I'm not sure if this is because it's a fiber line, we seem to get the responses and the transcription almost instantaneously, faster than what we had prior. We can do lots of things: We can do call groups, we can do work with our extensions, we can set up our account codes, we can take a look at call logs. There are a multiplicity of miscellaneous settings that are allowed for each user and for the Admin. There's a simplicity to it. It seems they use KISS principle, keep it simple, stupid. It works for everybody because, when I'm not here responding to it, my technicians are; sometimes my network guy is; sometimes our students are interacting with it. It creates a very easy flow for working through the product and the interface. The automatic upgrades are the best thing that ever happened, because we don't see them, we don't feel them, we just know that they happened, after the fact. What they've done, at least for us, is that we haven't had or felt a crash whatsoever, nor have we felt the disruption as a result of the updates. That tells me that work goes into them to get them done right, and that they really test the code and test the information in updates so that they work properly.
reviewer2757579 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Project Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real-time insight into voice quality issues has improved customer experience
I use Qrystal for real-time IMS troubleshooting and statistics for VoLTE/VoNR The partner is very sensitive to customer satisfaction and keeps seeking ways to identify any service degradation as quickly as possible. With Qrystal, we can spot any issue with customer voice quality down to its root…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"In terms of deployment, if I could give a 200 percent rating, I would give it, as it was very well done and coordinated by the RCN team."
"We use call recording. It's important to us because there's information that's passed from the customer to us... It's very important that we get the right information and if there's ever a dispute, we've got that recorded phone call to know if we've done something incorrectly or if the customer misordered."
"We have absolutely seen less packet loss and higher reliability with this solution... The uptime is excellent. We haven't had any issues. We haven't had any downtime."
"For everybody I've reached out to, the calls have been crystal clear, and even international calls have been clear."
"If I were to rate the overall solution a ten, it would probably be an understatement."
"We're very happy with it."
"As soon as we switched over to the RCN VoIP phone system, the clarity and quality of our calls improved and there has been no downtime."
"The uptime is excellent. We're always up. We don't have issues. The stability of it is spotless. It's rock solid. Everything works great. There's no need to tinker with it."
"Qrystal stood out during our assessment for voice quality monitoring and proved its value in the first month after deployment."
"The product and team have helped us maintain best-in-class telephony service for our users."
 

Cons

"One area for improvement is the Web Portal. It's not a full-view screen, it's more like a minimized screen. You don't get the full view of your desktop. It's more like a five-inch by five-inch view. I think they said the software was designed that way. I don't know if there's going to be a newer version coming out later."
"If they had better ongoing-training options, for example, if they put something out on YouTube where you could just go and look for individual things that you need by looking at a video, that would be very helpful."
"One area for improvement is the Web Portal. It's not a full-view screen, it's more like a minimized screen."
"We had a lot of problems with the install, with the initial rolling out and using of the system."
"Wireless needs improvement... We're still looking for the quintessential IP phone, the one phone that will actually be SIP-enabled and use the WiFi and be able to carry through three [different] buildings."
"If they could improve on their response times, making them even faster than they are right now, that would be great."
"It should be easier to set up new phone additions to the network."
"Wireless needs improvement. We have a manufacturing facility and the majority of the managers walk around with 2.4 gigahertz cordless phones and they have to walk, sometimes, throughout three different buildings."
"It might be helpful to have video tutorials embedded into the product that give you 15-30 second details about certain analytics, etc."
"Qrystal could be improved by including Diameter KPIs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're okay with the pricing and licensing... It's based on the number of extensions."
"We felt that pricing was fair because we chose RCN over quotes from several companies. It was reasonable..."
"Pricing is great. If you're not careful enough, you might just order too many. For the service, the price is right. When you design it, if you mess up and you realize you really need then more lines, the price is negligible."
"For us, the monthly price was 38 percent lower. We were paying somewhere between $5,600 and $5,800 every month for voice and data. We got it down to about $4,000 with tax."
"The pricing is fairly fair... We had a really good rep and she did a great job of working out a contract and a pricing solution that was acceptable..."
"The pricing is very fair. They have very good pricing."
"We looked at about five or six other companies but when RCN came in, they beat everybody hands-down, on both the features and on the dollars side. It prompted our people to say they hadn't seen numbers so low for the services you get."
"It's very affordable. We're very happy with the pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Qrystal?
It might be helpful to have video tutorials embedded into the product that give you 15-30 second details about certain analytics, etc. Future version ideas? Would be nice to have a mobile app.
What is your primary use case for Qrystal?
I use the product for monitoring telephony services.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Citi Open Tournament
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Find out what your peers are saying about Astound Hosted Voice vs. Qrystal and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.