VOIP for business line?

[slowtyper]

Never really used voip before. Is it a viable alternative to regular phone line for a small business? Stability?

[flafson]

If you are talking about regular VOIP like magic jack or something else then no.
There are companies that offer some kind of PBX services for businesses that should be ok then. Those are expensive though.
I've seen those sort of things as rental for something like $40 per line which is pretty good in what you get but then it's about the cost of a normal landline. You would get free calls and probably free long distance but still, not much difference in price.

[doublearon]

I was previously using Rogers Business lines, but found them to be unreliable. They are currently offering a VOIP solution, but their support is in another country and the phones are locked so you can't use them after you end a contract. There is a company called Versature out of Ottawa, I have been using their service for the past 6 months now and it has been very reliable and clear. They offer a SIP handet phone, Mobile phone app or even a Windows based solution. There is caller id, voicemail (voicemail to email), call forwarding, call queues, call attendant and a huge list of features. Do a google search on their company and you will see what they offer. I can say it is worth it for my company I work for as everyone works from home and can take their phone with them and just plug into a router to be up and running. Hope this helps!

[mackb1991]

http://voip.ms/

Cheap, reliable and lots of features. We've set up a couple of client with this and they have been happy with the service and reliability.
A bit of hardware required, but it's something you could probably set up yourself.

[jplup]

http://voip.ms/

Cheap, reliable and lots of features. We've set up a couple of client with this and they have been happy with the service and reliability.
A bit of hardware required, but it's something you could probably set up yourself.

I dont use Voip.ms for my office, but I use the toll free with ring group option, and the quality is pretty good.

[slowtyper]

How much can you save over a traditional phone line? I don't really need much out of the phone. One or two lines with call waiting thats it. Just seeing where costs can be cut safely.

[magicray]

checkout BroadConnect - very reliable.

[gei]

People still use regular phone lines?

I use voip.ms for my own business and have set it up for a few others - they've never looked back. The savings can be quite massive.

[smodes]

for our business, we use primus talkbroadband and it's been pretty decent...have a router with 8 ports but i think that you can only get them with 2 now.

[ZackP]

+1 for voip.ms

How much can you save? Would you switch if I said that you will save 50% over existing bill ! Sounds good, right? If you are paying 35 bucks now it will be 17.

But wait there is more ... what if I told you that you can pay 5 times less, what about 10 times less? Now we are talking real savings and it is true. Jokes on a side, we were paying 250-350 with Bell business line. Now it is more like 12 - 15 bucks a month. Subscription (number) costs 0.99 per months and minutes 0.01, often less.

[slowtyper]

have you ever had any downtime? (that was unrelated to internet going down)

BTW I loved your "sell"....could totally see the shamwow guy doing it on TV haha

[ZackP]

have you ever had any downtime? (that was unrelated to internet going down)

BTW I loved your "sell"....could totally see the shamwow guy doing it on TV haha

HA HA, yes, I Like ShamWow guy. He is hilarious also selling some chopping kitchen device. I would buy anything from him.

To answer a question, no I never had downtime. You understand that user has to have high speed Internet. voip.ms on their end have to keep up servers running and that is what they do. On good note, you can go visit friend or take business trip or move to Europe, when you get there you plug a VoIP phone into network (Internet) and you are on-line again. I often go to Florida i have similar phone there. So fly in the afternoon as soon as I get there log into voip.ms server and tell it to ring my FL extension. When I am done and going back just do opposite, log out from FL and log in Toronto extension. That is really cool stuff.

[JamesA1]

We have a PBX hooked up to Telus for regular phone lines, a b2b VoIP service for SIP trunks, and voip.ms for a few additional temporary phone numbers. The VoIP services are pretty good these days, with reasonable quality and reliability, but there is an occasional glitch like a number they can't call for some reason. As for customer service, Telus is horrible, but if you keep kicking them they get most things done eventually. The VoIP companies are the opposite: good response initially, but if they can't fix the issue immediately, they just stop responding. Very little depth. But we pay Telus $150/month for 3 lines, and the VoIP companies $60/month for 8 lines.

[PianoGuy]

VoIP is great technology, but you have to know what you're doing, be willing to learn, or be willing to pay someone that does, to have something that will match the audio quality and reliability of a landline.

Back a few years ago I signed up with a company that promised business phone lines for $12/month with no equipment purchase. They said all I'd have to do is plug a few ATAs into my router and turn them on. Needless to say, it sucked, most notably because I knew nothing about setting up QoS, and neither did their technical support. I was using my internet connection like normal, and completely saturating my upstream, and often saturating my downstream.

Obviously, now I know better. As long as you aren't expecting a complete landline replacement out of the proverbial box with no effort, (unless you're paying for the privilege) you'll be fine. If you don't mind spending a little time on the project in exchange for a better-sounding phone with more features than you'll ever use for a fraction of what you're paying now, then go for it

[pbxphone]

It does help a great deal if your business VoIP provider's infrastructure is local to your area. If you are looking for good call quality for local calls and not too concerned about the unlimited long distance carrot, then look for a VoIP provider that operates locally and has local PSTN gateways to ensure that great landline type quality. This ensures that the call is over the local Internet only from your end to the providers servers and then the call hops on to the local PSTN trunks!