I just wanted to know what you guys felt about using VOIP as ur method for phone communications to your clients? If not Why not? If any one does use this technology please explain why and what use it has for your particular company.

Thanx guys :)


xxen

I just wanted to know what you guys felt about using VOIP as ur method for phone communications to your clients? If not Why not? If any one does use this technology please explain why and what use it has for your particular company.

Thanx guys :)


xxen

The only possible way for my overseas customers to contact me is via my phone line here in Australia. The cheaper option for them is to ring a number in their country of course. And the only way for them to contact me through a number in their country is buy a number through SkypeIn (or anything similar).

I condone it, as long as you can answer it. If not, have it forward to your mobile.

O kool Swizi i am also in Australia so i guess thats good advice :)

I know many companies that use either VoIP exclusively or a combination of land lines and VoIP. It's definitely acceptable as long as the VoIP is good quality as long as the server is setup efficiently, with enough bandwidth, on a network with the correct QoS setup.

VoIP can be just as good as a normal phone line when everything is working properly and that's most of the time. But when it starts cutting out on you on a sales call or with an important client, it can be really embarrassing.

Greetings:

A number of customers use VOIP to communicate to us; and it is from that experience that (at least at present) we will not use VOIP to communicate to our customers.

Dropped calls, 1st time calls where you don't here anyone -- they end up calling back several times, and sometimes hard to hear compared to a land line or cell phone.

Thank you.

Really depends on what VOIP company service you use as well as what kind of bandwidth you have at your location. By make sure you have enough bandwidth for voice calls, you need to calculate bandwidth for EACH line to ensure good quality. I would recommend a dual landline/voip combination. While VOIP is great and can save your company on money there is still a chance something could go out like your internet connection, the electricity among other variables etc. So making sure you have a backup solution in place is key if you are serious about the importance of using your phone system for business.

There are quite a few large enterprises who use VOIP to save on costs, showing it can be done just have to make sure you have a system in place to handle incase anything should go wrong.

There are quite a few large enterprises who use VOIP to save on costs, showing it can be done just have to make sure you have a system in place to handle incase anything should go wrong.

Enterprises who use VoIP do so using their own managed networks and for internal use. To get to the outside world, they'll still be using regular lines. That's a whole different game to somebody using a Skype account on their PC.

Enterprises don't need to get accounts with VoIP providers. If their call volumes are large enough, they'll easily negotiate PSTN rates equal to, if not better than VoIP providers.

We're currently rolling out an Avaya IP system and contact centre internally. It uses VoIP between sites and to the handsets (H323 and SIP). We will still use primary rate ISDN for incoming calls and I can't see that changing any time soon.

The Avaya system was for the flexibility that it provides - for example; the ability to go to any phone in any of our offices and login with your own extension, the ability to login and make calls from a softphone on the laptop over the VPN, etc.

We expect the system to be more reliable than our existing Ericsson PBX given the redundancy involved (ability to have redundant call switches, spanning tree on the network, etc). We've got redundant fiber loops between offices and run our own network where we can control the QoS, etc. At no time does our internal VoIP traffic traverse the public internet.

The system is modular. If one component fails, the system automatically routes calls around the fault until the faulty component is replaced.

This is enterprise grade VoIP, and it doesn't come cheap. Our project alone costs 6 figures, and is very small compared to some of the projects being run by large MNCs.

-Shaun

We use it. If you call me on my number, which is a US number, it rings on a phone on my desk here in Europe. We use http://www.packet8.net for the service, and it works great.

We use it. If you call me on my number, which is a US number, it rings on a phone on my desk here in Europe. We use http://www.packet8.net for the service, and it works great.



kool thanx appreciated

We use Unlimitel, Inc. for our voip termination and use asterisk to manage our pbx system. It works flawlessly including extension to extension calling, auto-attendant and the on-hold music.

great thanx guys :) hopefully i will find a decent host which provides a dedicated Qos, i think that would be the hardest part of getting VOIP online

We use VoIP internally to our Asterisk box, and then have a T1 for handling all incoming and outgoing calls. It works splendidly. We actually probably end up paying more for the VoIP setup we have then a regular phone system, but the flexibility is great. FTR, when I lived in CT I was connected to our Asterisk system in CO (about 60ms latency) and the quality was excellent. Again, this was also going back to a local-to-the-VOIP-server T1 for dialtone service, so ...

We also have Comcast VOIP at home, and when I'm downloading big files, it's really lame.

Jay, do you use your T1 line for any data handling or just for VoIP, also what is ur VoIP providers network like? e.g Is it a Net to phone or end to end or IPVPN, is your T1 line connect to the internet or is it a commercial netowrk ?

Personally, I'd say the better question is why don't you , if you don't?

Using vonage, the past few years, I've paid (average) $30/month for unlimited calls to virtually anywhere I want. Whether that "anywhere" be my dad in Alaska, my sister in Virginia, my brother in Seattle, or my grandmother in Spokane, it's all good.

Using Vonage the past few years, I've been able to "dual ring" my phones. If I'm out of the house, I pick it up on the cell. If not, hey, no worries.


VOIP is great, if, for no other reason than it keeps the Bells in check. With VOIP in the market, they have no excuse for massive phone bills, because they'll just lose customers over it, and they know it.

Personally, for me there was no choice. Voip is great, and since I already had to have a cell phone (work/sms/etc), adding voip for the home phone (cell reception isn't the greatest indoors in most cases) was just a no-brainer.

thanx for the reply linux-tech

I agree on some points that VoIP is the way to go with my business as well but sometimes it may not be so cheap depending on which provider you go with. If you make a an international call to Scandanavia for example and that country is monopolised by one or two VoIP providers you would be expected to pay 1-3 $Us a minute. Also Sometimes VoIP companies will make profits from selling added extra features like caller ID or extra gatekeeper support. Then VoIP can become an anooyance on some LAN networks with the phones etc.. Not to mention you need to get a QoS rate before you sign up, and even if you seem to have a quality provider they may not charge you for incoming calls but will get you on annual rates :)

But this aside lol i think ill go for VoIP..cant b bothered typing the good points haha

Jay, do you use your T1 line for any data handling or just for VoIP, also what is ur VoIP providers network like? e.g Is it a Net to phone or end to end or IPVPN, is your T1 line connect to the internet or is it a commercial netowrk ?

The T1 is straight voice and tied right into our asterisk box that sits on our local network at the office. People who work remotely connect to the asterisk box via our IP conenctivity (gigE to Level3 and gigE to TWTC) over a straight SIP connection.

I'm not sure if my ISP does USA numbers for their VOIP, but it was the most available solution and I'm impressed, the sound quality is great and there's nothing wrong with it. I have skype on my Smart phone and I have a USB phone connected into my PC so I can hear it ring when I'm at the desk, or in the house as I have it turned up loud.

There's nothing wrong with Skype.

On 1 system We use a Cisco Call Manager with Traditional inbound lines and Voip Outbound.

On another system we use Packet8 Virtual Office which works pretty well but there is an distinct lack of quality even on a QOS optimized and dedicated line with more than double the required bandwidth both ways. Having said that the virtual office system is pretty nice and we didn't have to drop 20K on it to get off the ground like the Cisco system.