Recommendations for best business voip service since GV going away?
BillDoe:
Proftech = you hit the nail on the head at the chief reason my wife will yell when she hears this is my plan. she saw me struggle with issues I was having with disconnected calls, etc. with GV, so any suggestion I plan to do something similar will not be received well.
Forget I mentioned a business line, it muddied the waters - it is just another home line that she uses for work so she can have a separate number and vmail, thats all. I did see she averages maybe 1000-1500 outbound minutes per billing cycle - charter doesn't track inbound minutes.
Changing both home and her work numbers is also not an issue, so we can take that off the table.
Having said all the above, I don't want a solution thats going to have me doing all sorts of complex configurations that fail on a reasonably regular basis. her line is her lifeline as a home-based rep. when it goes down, she's dead in the water and my life will be miserable scrambling to get it back up.
MikeHObi:
If any of your devices have two phone ports, you can do this with one device. But if you need two then what you need is similar to what I need.
This should be super simple and cause limited to zero grief, you just need to make some decisions.
#1 - Do you want to have a single account to manage the two services, or do you not care. (i.e. a single pool of minutes or a single pool of dollars and same account type)
#2 - If you want to have a single account to manage the two services then you need to decide if you need independent E911 addresses per device. (i.e. is one device going to be at a different address)
#3 - How many concurrent sip channels do you need? Many residential /free services limit you to two.
Once you know that you can pick a service and set things up. For example, I want a single account to manage my two devices (obi 202 and a obi100). I need independent E911 address per device. In my research that eliminated Callcentric. They have the concept of Sub Accounts (via Extensions) but they can not have a different address for e911 per extension.
Since I already have an account with Anveo so I am using them currently and the configuration was simple.
I added the second Obi and registered it through obi Talk. It now shows up as a device for me to manage with my single ObiTalk account. I then using my Anveo account logged in. While Anveo doesn't walk you through it, I tend to be a curious sort so I have investigated all their web menu options so I had a good idea where to go.
You go to the users/sub accounts page from the My accounts menu. If you want to share the funds in your account with this new account click on the Action button next to your current account and choose Add Sub Account. If you don't want to share the funds in your account (probably best for business, but not required) with this new account (want to have separate funds) you just click on the add new user.
During the sub account setup you configure everything you need including a DID and then enable SIP.
Once you enable sip you will see the info you need to configure in the obi.
Configure that in the Obi and now when you call this new DID, the phone connected to the Obi will ring.
Pretty simple. It just works. Each did in Anveo gets it's own call flow. Each account can have it's own voice mail.
ProfTech:
I understand your dilemma. Since you will be moving, maybe we are getting the cart before the horse. Before we think about phone service at all you need to determine who your new internet service provider will be and what type of service it will be. Simple reason; No "Internet" {VOIP} service can ever be any better than the underlying ISP service. With that in mind there is another option for some folks. It sounds like you may already be using it. The option would be to use a pre-packaged and supposedly tested / guaranteed service. That might be Vonage or service from your new ISP. I used Vonage for about 3 years until they got up to about $35 per month. If you're going to be in an area where Verizon FIOS is available you can get internet phone service directly from them as well. There are other pre-packaged services that are separate from the ISP but I don't have any experience with any of them.
An option that I like, if it is available to you is to get DSL internet service along with "real" phone service from the local phone company. Then you always have a real phone for backup, and it should be less expensive in the end than cable internet. Many out there pooh-pooh DSL service but under the right conditions I think it can be superior to cable. That said, if you are looking at ATT you may want to be wary if they are offering their UVerse service as opposed to standard DSL. I have seen numerous discussions of the modem they supply for UVerse and they weren't favorable for VOIP phone use unless you buy their pre-packaged phone service.
The bottom line for you may be how much effort do you want to expend to set it up and can you live with a few issues along the way, vs how much do you want to spend each month?
*edited* You didn't say what model Obi(s) you have, but the 110 is very well suited to use with a backup land line.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page