Just curious if anybody is using VOIP service for business phones. Vonage? Satisfied / Dissatisfied?

Thanks for your feedback.

Not sure if this counts but we've been using the Voice feature of Yahoo Instant Messenger for years. It's a great feature and one of the reasons for using it exclusively.

Although we use the Voice feature of YIM the same as we would a telephone for business related issues, I wasn't aware of Services that will work with a telephone itself. Or is some sort of special phone required?

No, the VOIP services generally supply an adapter of some sort that plugs in to your router / switch.

I am hearing figures of about $30 buck a month. Wondering if the audio quality is as good as say, Verizon?

Try skype: www.skype.com. Its free for pc to pc calls, but costs for pc to phone calls.

Theres also Stanaphone (if its still around) it gives you a free local new york number. (an ACTUAL new york phone number)

There's a lot of ways to do VoIP.

You can use special phones, you can tie it into an existing PBX, or you can just use it on PCs. It's starting to take off it and if you do it right you can save a lot of money. If you want to replace your existing phone service plan on investing a fair amount up front, but if you just want to dabble with it you can get started for free.

We have an IP-PBX with Cisco IP phones. Extremely happy with VoIP :)

Quality is perfect (although having our own ISDN gateway helps).

i been using vonage for about a year now. I had some problems at the beggining, but i think it was more of cox fault not vonage. I am just using the resdient plan right now, because i don't make many businness phone calls.

We are using Vonage for sometime now and are very happy with it. :)

Amar

I am also using Vonage (www.vonage.com) and I am very happy with the service. about $50/month and includes all calling features. Unlimited Long Distance and Local calling. Virtual Numbers for better coverage of local support and Toll-free numbers.

All-in-all I can't think of a better solution for business telephone service.

I use Vonage for local service to one of my primary markets. All in all it's a very good solution, I'd estimate that I have less than optimal conditions in about 10% of calls (lag, echo, dropped calls, etc.). The rest of the time it's difficult to tell the difference between landline and VOIP.

Brandon

I use Vonage for my home office, I have one voice line and a fax line. Unfortunately Vonage is only geared toward residential and very small business use. They do not have any terminal adapters or other solutions for more than 2 lines (they say to just use multiple 2-line terminal adapters for more lines). It would be nice if there was an IP PBX solution that did not require in-house PSTN lines.

We are using Lingo from Primus Telecom. For a total of $19.95 a month we got to choose a local phone number and get unlimited calling in the US, Canada and parts of Western Europe.

The terminal adapter costs $29.95 plus $9.95 shipping.

You get one month's service free when you sign up. Also there is a $25 credit available when you are referred by an existing customer. PM me with your name and email address if you want a referral.

The voice quality is quite good. I have had minor problems with echos and lag on certain calls but overall it is no different from a landline call or cell phone call.

What else can I tell you? The package of calling services is pretty extensive and you can get a second "Universal number" which rings on your line. The "Universal number" allows you to choose from any available area code and local exchange in the US, Canada or certain international locations. Callers in the area you choose can call you as a local call and it will ring on your line, wherever you might actually be located.

No complaints here about Vonage. We use them. We love them. We will continue to use them.

We use the vonage business plan as well. Excellent service and quality. The only thing that I would like is for the caller ID to display the company name rather then Out of Area, but we can deal with that for now.

PM me and let me know if you want to sign up and we'll both get a free month. :)

Can you still send a fax through a VoIP "line"?

I'm always amazed that people still send faxes :)

I think it would work, but it's possible the compression technologies used for voice might make it not work quite as well.

Would this technology be something that is required through a special company as opposed to the local phone company? Something tells me that here in Canada we may be pretty limited in our choices.

I use Vonage for my business phone and fax. When I first signed up things weren't as great. I would say the quality is about that of a cell phone.

Things have changed, I've gotten them to upgrade my equipment, and things are great now. I haven't had a problem with static or garbling in awhile now, and it's cheap.

I also like the fact if I move, I just plug the equipment in at the new location and I'm up again. No calling the phone company and having them install a new line, or losing my old number.

Originally posted by TheFish
Can you still send a fax through a VoIP "line"?

With Lingo, if you get the business service, it comes with 2 lines. One of them can be used as a fax line.

Even with the cheaper Personal service, you can connect a fax machine to the single line and it works fine. What doesn't work too well, from what I see, are Tivo boxes or anything else with a high-speed modem. Fax is a low enough baud rate, apparently, to work properly.

with ulaw or alaw you can it works ok. asterisk is a great system we have it and i have installed it at about 20 of are customers sites. Great System.

with vonage I have used fax and it works.

also I have to say:

Using Vonage and gotvmail together, you can run your business from anywhere. I even do this when traveling. And the customer will never know the difference.

Take your VoIP terminal and laptop and stay in a place with High speed internet.

I would never go back.

I'm using vonage. I love it. My only issues is that they only have phone adapters that support 2 lines...so, we have 2 adapters...which gets cluttered.

Vonage is avaliable in Canada too for one of the previous posters

I'm using Packet8, and its far better then Vonage. I only had one or two drop calls so far as I was uploading some files and did not have enough bandwidth to push the calls to the server even with my 768kb/s DSL line. I use Vonage before but returned it and go my money back the 1st week I had it. The sound quality of Packet8 is similar to a landline or cellphone.

Other Reviews >> http://www.dslreports.com/isplist?t=voip

I'm using Packet8 here, and it works great.

I use packet8, every so often when I dial a number I got the quick busy signal and I have to hang up and try dialing again or a 3rd time...

I've setup Vonage for a family member, it looks like it works much better, and more features - better web interface etc... (and number portability)

Originally posted by Website Rob
Would this technology be something that is required through a special company as opposed to the local phone company? Something tells me that here in Canada we may be pretty limited in our choices.

The companies that I know that offer it in Canada are the following:

Sprint Canada: http://www.sprint.ca/
Primus: http://www.primus.ca/
Vonage: http://www.vonage.ca/

Guys, thanks very much for the excellent feedback. So it basically it boils down to vonage or packet8. We have a client that uses packet8 and he swears by it.

Either way, we are dumping Verizon. Just waaaaaaaaay to expensive.

has anybody used primus?

Yes, I am using primus now.

I tried VOIP with Primus here in Canada. All I had to pay for was the monthly fee. However, my calls would get disconnected after a few minutes -- every time. Probably a problem with my ISP. So I stopped using it.

If ISP is out, no VOIP. Go landline, go.


JP