VOIP Misunderstood

The calls started flooding in one day. The phone rings and you hear on the person say "Voice over ip.. please sell me that!!"

"Sell you what and why?"

"Sell me a VOIP phone system so I don't have to pay long distance anymore"

"You don't need anything special for that"

"I don't?"

"Nope"

Over the coming months, we had the same conversation with 2500 different people. It was obvious that VOIP is a completely misunderstood animal. It's also highly misunderstood what it can do for you and why.

Before you go spend a gajillion dollars for that new Cisco system (that won't work very well btw, we'd like to warn you). Let's do a bit of research together and explore these common questions about what VOIP is and does.

I'm not writing today to educate you about all the ins and outs of how your voice can be carried over and internet line instead of a phone line. If you're not quite sure what VOIP IS just yet, it's suffice to say that you use the internet and an existing network to carry your voice over internet geek stuff instead of SWB phone line geek stuff.

What I'm more interested in writing to you about is how to solve your issue.

THE TWO USES OF VOIP

When it comes to Voip, there are two very good reasons (well one VERY good reason and one so so reason) that it could be important to your business. Now mind you I'm speaking of you smaller businesses out there from the 3 person office to the medium size company with several locations.

REASON #1 - Using a VOIP "phone line" to cut your long distance.
This is a question asked of us allllllllll the time. And the truth is you do not need anything fancy with your phone system to make this stuff work.

Any "subscriber line" from a company such as Vonage will just directly hook up to whatever phone system you have.

People seem to have a hard time understanding how this works, but basically, that voip line from Vonage, by the time it gets plugged into your phone system, is in all reality, a regular phone line. A device that Vonage provides you hooks up in between their line and your phone system. That device, often referred to as an ATA (analog telephone adapter) turns THEIR signal into a signal just like a regular phone line.

So in this respect, you need no fancy hardware on the telecom side, just the service.

A word about how well this works. Let me put it this way. In our office, I got us two Light year VOIP lines and one Vonage line. I have since cut all three off and have gone back to using regular phone lines from bell with their no long distance plan.

REASON #2 Remote Phones!

This is a GOOD reason to use VOIP. The ability to have a phone in a different location from your office, but have it seamlessly connected is a cool idea.. you must admit!

No matter how you go about doing this, it's going to cost you some extra change. There is NO WAY to get this kind of thing working without plunking down a hefty bit of money. If someone says it works for cheap, they are lieing (except for Talkswitch from Centerpointe Technologies, but it is a small small solution. It is cheap and it works)

MY advice on this one is to stick to the Major Brands. Nortel is at the top of my list. But no matter who you pick, be sure that you understand this stuff is new and buggy. No way around that.

Don't kid yourself into believing that if you spend even MORE money that the service will get better, cause it won't.

So stay practical. Think through why you need VOIP very carefully and make your choices wisely. No one can afford to reverse their decisions.