Is this type of phone service an option in a business environment?
We have a network set up and cable internet service. We would need 3-4 lines and about 10-15 phone extensions.
Yes, it’s definitely an option. A company I worked for a couple years ago converted to it, and it worked great for the most part. Our phones would go down for an hour or two maybe once a month, which wasn’t critical, but we had maybe 50 handsets, don’t know how many separate lines. It was in NYC. I can’t remember the provider we used, sorry.
Yep. Our office has it. It’s just called “Voice over IP” or VOIP instead of being referred to by a company name like vonage. Ours works pretty well. We had a lot of problems with it in the past due to the fact that it was an old system and kept breaking, and the el-cheapo bastards in management didn’t want to pay to have the thing fixed properly. They finally sprung to have a few boards replaced, and the thing has hummed along like a champ ever since.
A simple cable internet connection might not work so well. Cable has good download speeds but not so hot upload speeds. VOIP needs good speed in both directions. Cable connections can also suck the big one if you have a lot of users on your trunk. In some areas it can probably handle 3-4 lines. In other areas it will barely handle 1.
Thanks.
Does the ISP have to be consulted or provide the service? I did a quick check on our ISP’s site (Comcast) and they indicated that DigitalVoice was not available in our area. That may not be what I’m looking for though.
Most VoIP products use packet signalling, and therefore need to grab off huge swaths of bandwidth to ensure voice delivery. (Voice standards require “guaranteed on time” packet delivery; data can get away with “best effort.”)
There’s a company in the Metropolitan New York area that offers a packaged VoIP and data service for up to something like 200 voice-line equivalents, but that’s on a xDSL-type circuit with at least a DS1 pipe. I would imagine that if your cable provider isn’t offering digital phone service in your area it’s because the plant won’t handle it reliably.
I have Vonage at home, and while it’s great for me with my handful of calls a month, I’d be leery of it for a business environment.
I live in the boonies, though. That probably matters.