Business Desk Phone
Discussion
ipsg.glf said:
Just a standard BT socket.
But you have internet access? And if you have a BT socket, you can get internet? So why not VOIP? Having a BT line and dedicated broadband connection still works out cheaper than making BT calls. It's a no-brainer.VOPI soooooooooooooooooooo much cheaper than BT.
maser_spyder said:
ipsg.glf said:
Just a standard BT socket.
But you have internet access? And if you have a BT socket, you can get internet? So why not VOIP? Having a BT line and dedicated broadband connection still works out cheaper than making BT calls. It's a no-brainer.VOPI soooooooooooooooooooo much cheaper than BT.
maser_spyder said:
VOPI soooooooooooooooooooo much cheaper than BT.
BT UK landline calls (now including 0845 and 0870 numbers) are free if you have their inclusive call package. We do try to use Skype for international calls but it's still a bit random. One neat thing about Skype is you can call 0800 (or equiv) numbers in the US without even signing up. Perfect for conference calls / webcasts etc.
Deva Link said:
maser_spyder said:
VOIP soooooooooooooooooooo much cheaper than BT.
BT UK landline calls (now including 0845 and 0870 numbers) are free if you have their inclusive call package. We do try to use Skype for international calls but it's still a bit random. One neat thing about Skype is you can call 0800 (or equiv) numbers in the US without even signing up. Perfect for conference calls / webcasts etc.
VOIP comes our at around 10-12p a minute to a mobile, still expensive, but nowhere near the BT 50p/40p a minute charges. Most international calls are 1p-4p per minute (landline), and not much more to international mobile.
Have a look at the SNOM 'phones, not the cheapest, but German design, very easy to set up and operate. I've got an office full of them, have had for 4 years, wouldn't go any other way now.
I use Voiptalk.org for numbers and call packages, but there are others out there that will do it just as well.
It's worth spending an afternoon going through the options and working it out in your head.
Our call costs went from £400 a quarter to £400 a year when we switched to VOIP, so we also installed an Asterisk server. We basically have a telephone exchange in our office with all the features that goes with it, for a cost of about £150. A fraction of the cost of normal 'phone systems.
All of the big call centres use VOIP for calls, admittedly with a hoofey great bandwidth, but it's the same technology. If you're making lots of calls (6-8 concurrent lines +), you should really have a dedicated broadband connection just for the 'phones, as well as the one you use for internet.
For just a couple of concurrent lines, you'll get away with using the same connection for voice and data.
Forgot to mention, that was CONCURRENT CALLS not available numbers.
You could have a handset plugged in to your router with 1000 incoming telephone numbers programmed in to it if you wanted, or just one account (with associated ring tone) with one number.
The same people mentioned above also do fax to email.
You can have a couple of concurrent telephone numbers 01234 001122 / 01234 001123 for voice calls and fax respectively. Any faxes will be forwarded as a PDF to your email, where you can obviously print if you want to.
You can also buy 'block' telephone numbers, so a group of 10/100 sequential numbers, you get a bit of discount for this.
You can also lease international numbers and set them up to the same handset.
You can have one single handset that can have multiple accounts programmed in to it. You assign the telephone numbers to an account, then set up the account with the handset. Ultimately, from one handset it can look like you have companies and offices all over Britain, Europe or the World, with a different ring tone for each 'account' so you know how to answer.
Or just have a single account with a single number in the UK (geographic or non-geo) and save money on calls.
You could have a handset plugged in to your router with 1000 incoming telephone numbers programmed in to it if you wanted, or just one account (with associated ring tone) with one number.
The same people mentioned above also do fax to email.
You can have a couple of concurrent telephone numbers 01234 001122 / 01234 001123 for voice calls and fax respectively. Any faxes will be forwarded as a PDF to your email, where you can obviously print if you want to.
You can also buy 'block' telephone numbers, so a group of 10/100 sequential numbers, you get a bit of discount for this.
You can also lease international numbers and set them up to the same handset.
You can have one single handset that can have multiple accounts programmed in to it. You assign the telephone numbers to an account, then set up the account with the handset. Ultimately, from one handset it can look like you have companies and offices all over Britain, Europe or the World, with a different ring tone for each 'account' so you know how to answer.
Or just have a single account with a single number in the UK (geographic or non-geo) and save money on calls.
Plotloss said:
40p/min to mobiles?
We're at 9.9p/min on BT and I cant seem to make VOIP pay competing at that price (one of the business, practically all calls are to mobiles)
I was quoting prices without any 'call packages' for the voip calls. If you sign up for the packages, the deals are much better than BT.We're at 9.9p/min on BT and I cant seem to make VOIP pay competing at that price (one of the business, practically all calls are to mobiles)
I was quoting standard BT rate against standard VOIP rate for ease of understanding, when you get in to packages, pricing gets a lot more complicated....
I actually over-quoted the VOIP mobile rates, it's 8p per minute to UK mobiles. BUT, where it really works is it's only 12p per minute to France mobiles, or 0.9p per minute to USA.
Where VOIP really comes in to its own is in International calls and flexibility of telephone numbers. There's so much more you can do with it.
Have you ever tried calling BT and asking for a Paris telephone number, to be redirected to your UK line? They wouldn't know where to start!
maser_spyder said:
Yes, but BT calls to mobiles are horrendous!
Thanks for the other information that you provided.In our business (I suppose it's higher end business to business) mobile calls are usually to friends and family, or colleagues - we wouldn't normally be calling the customer's mobile. So we try to make mobile calls from mobiles and use the free minutes - in practice people ususally have the number they want to call in their mobile phone book so it's easier to do that.
It's an interesting function of the way pricing has come down though, that you've only got to make a chunky mobile or international call now and it stands out on the bill - it would have been lost before. Years ago my home office bills where regularly £350+/qtr. Now they're under £200, and £75 of that is the broadband charge.
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