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Please recommend Product/Service for small business

Started by mbonus, July 22, 2021, 08:40:51 AM

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mbonus

I have been using an OBI202 at the house for a while.  A friend of mine that has a repair business asked my advice on how to reduce his phone bill.  He currently has four landlines which are used in advertisements (yellow page ads/web sites).  All of these lines are forwarded to a single cell phone.  Few if any calls are made from the landlines.  I was thinking there must be a more efficient way to do this using a similar setup to my Obi202.

What Obi device and service would accomplish his current setup?  Are there any blind spots I'm not seeing?

SteveInWA

A reliable Internet Telephone Service Provider like Callcentric or voip.ms can do that for a lot less money than your friend is paying now.

mbonus

Quote from: SteveInWA on July 22, 2021, 03:10:43 PM
A reliable Internet Telephone Service Provider like Callcentric or voip.ms can do that for a lot less money than your friend is paying now.

Thanks Steve,

Yeah, that's what I thought too.  What device should he use?  Does it matter if the subsidiary lines are just forwarded?  Is all of that done at the provider level or is it happening at the local device such as obi202? 

I guess then it becomes a question of which phone plan.  I'm thinking even with the callcentric per minute plan that would be way cheaper.  He's only seeing at tops 5 to 10 calls a day.

Lavarock7

I agree either CallCentric or Voip.MS would do. I prefer the latter but it is a personal choice.

Voip.Ms can allow him to port in the numbers for free. Then hosting is 85 cents per number per month. He can have each number default to a different voicemail box if he wishes. He also can have a welcome message with info for each number. Things like "If you need to speak to someone immediately press 1 otherwise please leave a message" or "This weeks special is [blah blah])". He can even set up time constraints as to when calls get answered or forwarded, etc.

With few calls, I suggest 'per call' pricing.
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com

mbonus

Thanks Lavarock;

So all of that is on the provider side?  Then the only reason he would need an Obi device is if he wants to make calls from inside his house?

Lavarock7

Quote from: mbonus on July 27, 2021, 06:22:18 AM
Thanks Lavarock;

So all of that is on the provider side?  Then the only reason he would need an Obi device is if he wants to make calls from inside his house?

The services mentioned can accept and forward inbound calls or send top voicemail or handle other functions.

Outbound calls from a physical phone need some type of provider and an Obi can be an interface or an Obi phone can be that phone.

The Obi devices also allow you to make calls using Google Voice if that needs to be an option.

So yes, for the most part, the Obis allow calls from his house. If he just wants to receive calls from those other numbers to his cell, then an Obi is not necessary.
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com

Sheffield_Steve

And he will only need the Obi if he wants to use an analogue phone at home.  Otherwise buy a SIP phone with GV support.

mbonus

Excellent - Thank you everybody for your suggestions!  I'm going to recommend he port one of his less used numbers to a VOIP service and try it for a month to make sure it meets his needs but I think it will work great for his use case

mbonus

Okay back again with a different question as I am thinking of dumping my cable company phone service at our office.

We have an older NEC Electra Elite system with 12 stations.  This is being fed with on two outside lines and we have a dedicated outside fax line.  Right now these lines are provided by our cable company.

My thought was to Port the lines to a service such as VOip.ms or callcentric and provision a obi504vs to feed the NEC system/fax machine.  I now see that the Obi504vs is discontinued.

Would it make sense to deploy 2 obi202s and put one with the NEC and one with the Fax line?

Lavarock7

One thing to keep in mind about porting...

I don't mind porting home phone numbers to a provider, but recently there were issues which showed that is not necessarily the best choice.

A number of Voip provider were hit with a denial of services attack. My two critical neighbor accounts weather the storm. We kept their business number hosted at the local telco. They have a large staff who can easily make adjustments and have resources that VOIP supplies may not. (One business is a farm giving tours and receiving a lot of calls about availability to take a tour within a couple hours of the call. The other business is a Limo company which services guests at one of the most expensive resorts around).

We then got a local telephone number from each of two VOIP providers. We forwarded their business calls to one or the other of the VOIP providers. If one provider had issues (which was the case) we just charged forwarding to the other provider. If both providers had issues, we just unforwarded the lines and received calls directly from the Telco. We can use the Telco or either of the VOIP providers for outbound calls depending upon cost or need.

We had to get a local number because these businesses are on an island and calling any phone number to another island costs lots of money with the telco. Calling the other 49 states costs even more. So since local calls were free and we would normally be forwarding calls locally, it cost us nothing else. We do not subscribe to any long distance with the Telco.

So for mission-critical businesses which need to be available real-time, this worked well. The cost for two local numbers from the VOIP providers was under $2 a month for each business.
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com