Product Review

[Voice Recognition and eMachines M5310] [Canon 6.3MP EOS Rebel Digital Camera] [Voice Over IP] [HP Pavillion ZD7000] [Radio Shack 6-in-1 Remote] [Palm Zire 71] [Perfect Notebook Part 2] [Perfect Notebook] [Do LCD's make a difference?] [Digital Camera Binoculars] [Maxtor Backup] [Apple iBook Part 2] [Apple iBook Part 1] [Sony Vaio Laptop] [Panasonic’s KX-TG4000B 4 Line, Multi-Cordless Handset] [Brother MFC-9700] [E-Machines] [Dual Monitors] [Sony Clie PDA] [IDE Raid Controllers] [Olympus C700 Digital Camera]

Voice Over IP

Does it make sense for Small Business?

By now you must have heard about Voice over IP technology. I had heard about it, but had never investigated it as an option for small business. I had always seen it as something that big business would use to connect offices together to save on communication charges. I had also always assumed that it would be a technical challenge and therefore was not really interested in researching the effectiveness for my small business. Well, boy were my assumptions incorrect. Voice over IP does make sense for even the smallest business.

Basically Voice over IP, (VOIP), takes advantage of your existing high speed internet connection and converts bandwidth to a standard telephone connection. After listening to people talk about how great it was, I decided to look at www.vonage.com, a leading provider of VOIP connectivity. Not only is their service extremely reasonable, they provided the hardware that was truly plug and play. All I did was plug in the Linksys VOIP router (which they provided) to my DSL modem and then connected my phone system to the standard RJ11 port on the router. Presto.. dial tone. That is all there was to it.

They offer a variety of plans. I'm currently using their basic business package that costs $39.95 per month which includes: Primary voice line with 1500 usage minutes per month and all the extra features like call forwarding, voicemail, caller ID, automatic forwarding to a number of your choosing if your internet connection gets disrupted. Long distance is included. Secondary fax line with 500 minutes of usage.

For only $10 more per month you can get unlimited primary voice line usage. If you only need a single line for home, they have plans that start as low as 14.95 per month.

Perhaps the most attractive features are the ability to choose where to have your number and the ability to take the number with you. When I signed up for the service, I chose a Charleston exchange as it is long distance for nearly all my Charleston clients to call me here in Cottageville, but I could have just as easily chosen an exchange in Burlington Vermont. As for taking your number with you, when you travel and have access to high speed internet, you can simply take your router with you. Your phone will ring just as if you were at your home office. I also really like their web interface (www.vonage.com) which allows you to control and monitor basically every aspect of your lines without complicated procedures. It is rather cool to see up to the minute usage of your phone lines for both incoming and outgoing calls.

So are there any down sides? Yes there are. In our case, we use a DSL connection which means we still have to have at least one standard phone line. Also, our DSL connection is rather slow and therefore phone calls noticeably reduce our internet speed. I've found the quality to equal that of my cell phone, but it has never sounded completely clean like a standard phone line. As far as I'm concerned, it is still worth it for the long distance savings, but I'm not ready to completely give up my standard phone line just yet.

For information on VOIP plans and requirements visit www.vonage.com or give us a call at 1-843-278-0379 or 1-843-835-5624