This is the first article in the Can You Hear Me Now? Series of blog posts in which I embark on a journey to find the most cost effective home office VoIP plan for my computer repair business.
The next milestone in getting my computer support business up and running is setting up a separate phone number and line. This is one of the original milestones I set for my business last year, and is the last thing standing in the way of me unleashing my business on the world in the form of business cards and advertisements. I currently have no land-line phone, and I have no desire to use my personal cell phone exclusively for business purposes. I decided to spend some time evaluating different VoIP plans to see which one was right for my work-from-home business.
Why VOIP?
I made the decision very early on to keep my private and phone separate. It’s tempting for me to just use the cell phone I already have, but in order to retain my sanity I believe in as much separation as possible between work and “real life”.
That’s where VoIP comes in. If you don’t know, VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, a technology that allows one to place telephone calls over the same high-speed Internet connection that your computer uses. After doing some research and weighing my options, I decided to go with VoIP over a traditional phone service because, 1) it’s cheaper than regular phone service, 2) most plans allow you to make calls anywhere in the world from your computer, and 3) it’s usually easy to add low-cost professional touches to your service like hold music, voicemail with auto attendant, and call forwarding.
Once I have my VoIP line installed, I’ll use it as my primary business number and use my cell phone only when out in the field. This is still a bit risky to me, as I’ll be calling clients form my cell phone on occasion, but once I start making enough money to afford a separate business cell phone, I’ll pick one up. There are also options to make VoIP calls from your existing cell phones, so I may look into that in the future as well.
Considerations
Now that I’ve decided that I want to go with a VoIP phone service, my next step is to choose a vendor. There are VoIP companies popping up like weeds all the time, and the same amount are going out of business just as fast. It’s important that I go with a carrier with some name recognition and longevity. I also have to make a list of features that are important to me in my business. This will ensure that I have a set of criteria to measure the different VoIP plans against. Here are the considerations that are important to me:
Unlimited Minutes – As a remote computer repair tech I will rely on my phone almost exclusively as a means to communicate with my customers. Sure, I may use email in some situations, but most customers will contact me via phone and I will communicate with them using the same. I don’t want to worry about overtime charges.
Call Forward – This feature allows calls coming into my VoIP phone to be forwarded to another phone, like my cell. It is important that I have this feature in order to keep the lines of communication with my customers open when I am not at home.
Voicemail – This is a no brainer. I’m not going to be around to answer the phone all the time and therefore need a way for customers to leave me a message. Not all voicemail is created equal however. Some plans require you to pay an extra fee for voicemail. Some allow you to check voicemail from any phone, even over the web, and some even allow you to receive voicemails in your email. All of these factors will need to be taken into consideration.
Softphone - A softphone is the computer interface for your phone. It allows you to place calls directly from your computer. The biggest benefit I will gain from a softphone is the convenience of interfacing directly with my online contact list. It’s cool, but not absolutely necessary.
Hardware – Some VoIP providers require that you purchase their phone adapter to use with a regular phone of your choosing. Some providers offer internet-only phone, while others don’t require any special hardware at all, just a regular computer microphone and speakers.
Price – And finally there’s the price. I’m not going to be making a ton of money the first couple years I’m in business, so I want to make sure my monthly bill is kept as low as possible.
The Contenders
After doing some digging on the Internet, polling my followers on twitter, and talking to some friends, I’ve narrowed down my selection list to the following VoIP providers and plans, all of which include the features I’m looking for.
Vonage – Small Business Premium Unlimited
ITP – Home Office Unlimited
Voicepulse - Business Unlimited
Skype for business
Stay tuned for my next article later in the week where I dissect each plan and try to find the best one for my business.
Yes, that’s me in the picture at the top. Halloween 2007 as Your Friendly Neighborhood Verizon Guy.
Like I mentioned before, my wife and I use Skype as a low cost home back-up. Basically, we have a cell for calling for free within the network and we use the Skype In/Out for landline calls so the cell bill doesn’t go crazy. The other thing we do is we use Grandcentral.com (we got in when the beta was still open – common Google, open it up again!).
The one problem with using Grandcentral.com as our “one number for life” is that people get confused when we call them back with our cell number showing up on their caller ID. You said “There are also options to make VoIP calls from your existing cell phones” and I’m curious what you meant by it. Would that help my predicament?
Also, I suppose one more voip option would be whatever calling plan your ISP offers. For instance, for Time Warner Cable (or Road Runner) users, they offer a voip service to be added to your current bill. They usually offer package deals. Just a thought.
Looking forward to more in this series!
I’m taking a good look at Skype…I like the modularity of it and how it allows you to add only the services you want/need.
When I said that there are ways to make VoIP calls from your cell phone, I know for a fact that you can make skype calls on your cell phone using Skype Lite or Skype for Windows Mobile. While it’s not perfect yet, I think in a few years we’ll have many options for making VoIP calls from our smartphones.
I looked into my ISP’s (Comcast) VoIP options, but non of the plans were flexible enough for what I’m looking for.
Thanks for the great suggestions Tim! Good stuff to chew on.
Check out http://www.fring.com for your cellular voip needs, also it does instant messaging…
Ah yes, I have heard of that one…looks like another good option for VoIP on your cell.
I just wanted to add my 2 cents… If you are looking to expand to more lines as your business grows you need to consider the hardware that you are using. I have a VOIP PBX for my business and I have 3 incoming lines (6 actually as each # can handle 2 voice channels).
I have tried many of the providers like Vonage, Verizon Voice Wing, I even got burnt by the Sun Rocket fiasco. All of these providers use a hardware box (ATA) that connects your regular phone to their network over your cable or dsl. This is fine if you have only one phone line and only have one extension. Of course you could have a cordless system with 3 or 4 extensions but you are still limited to the lines available.
The other thing is if you ever want your own voip PBX (Asterisk, PBX-in-a-flash, Trixbox, etc) they won’t work with proprietary providers, even Skype has their network locked down to a point.
I chose a provider that gives me plain old SIP protocol that I can choose what to put on my end, right now I just have a 3 line GrandStream voip phone without any PBX connected and it works just fine. With the click of a mouse I can send all my calls to my cell phone or my softphone on my laptop.
There are many options available, keep your eyes open and make sure you look at the real value through the noise. Also just because a plan says unlimited does not mean it is…
One last thing, I pay $3.99 per month per phone number with unlimited incoming calls, each outgoing call after 100 minutes is .015 cents (1-1/2 cents) a minute. You might think this adds up but you really need to think how much you are on the phone everyday and if it is you making the calls.
Thanks for the great article, I will be waiting for the next in the series. Also nice costume
Thanks for the wonderful advice Phil! I forgot to mention in my article that I am not looking for anything like PBX…I plan on being a one-man shop with one business phone line for the foreseeable future.
I don’t think you mentioned the provider you’re using? Sounds it’s very open ended, which may or may not be what I’m looking for at this time. I’d love to check them out though if you can send me a link or name.
I wasn’t sure if I should advertise a company here or not…
I use PBX in a Flash (Asterisk) and they have a deal with Vitelity which you can get by going here: http://pbxinaflash.com/vitelity/ it supports the open source project and saves you some money off the regular plan that Vitelity offers. I have been using their service for about 6 months now and can’t complain a bit. I currently do not have the PBX setup but I use a GrandStream phone tied to my dsl line which connects over the internet to them. They are using SIP which is an open protocol. Even if you need one line it is worth checking out…
I have to chime in with another Asterisk recommendation. I jumped into VoIP years ago with Sunrocket before they crashed and burned. After a month of relying on their crappy service I entered the world of Asterisk, which can be another source of revenue too. For the price of, well, nothing (an old computer I had laying around) I have a world-class auto attendant, voicemail, conferencing, faxing, and everything else. My calls get forwarded to my cell phone when I’m not in my office. My wife even dials in when she’s out and makes $0.04/min calls to Brazil. Most of my outgoing US calls are roughly free. I have multiple outgoing trunks for redundancy. I can have as many incoming and outgoing lines as I want/need. If you have an old computer around take a look at nerdvittles.com, download PBX in a Flash, and have your own full-featured phone system 15 minutes later. Then sell your new telephony expertise to other small businesses.
I fully agree with you, this is the best route for small businesses now-a-days. I also agree you can sell the service but sometimes that is more of a headache than it is worth. You then are support your customers computers and phones, if the phones go out they are calling you…
Thanks Bill….yes, you mentioned Asterisk before. It looks wonderful! But because it’s open source and I’m the one who will be implementing it, I’m hesitant to use it as my primary phone provider right from the start.
I think what I’ll do is go with a commercial VoIP provider for now and download and experiment with Asterix and PBX in a Flash. I don’t want to get over my head from day 1 with my own phone system. Once I go full-time with my business, I’ll probably feel more comfortable jumping over exclusively to my own phone system.
But you’ve DEFINITELY given me some food for thought and some great ideas and suggestions!
The fact that it’s open source is a big benefit. The community support is terrific. And now seems to be a great time to try it – you have nothing to lose since no one even knows your business phone number yet and you should have time to play around with it. By the time you’re really ready for it, you’ll know what you’re doing with it too. And yeah, pre-paid vendors definitely limit the risk of hackers (it’s REALLY not difficult to secure these things anyway.)
@Bill Greenberg – I’ve never checked into that before. I think I will!
Phil makes a good point too. Be ready for calls when things go wrong if you sell the expertise.
Another good reason to be sure you know what your getting into before you start selling VOIP services, http://nerdvittles.com/?p=580 picture your client that you setup a PBX for getting a bill for $100,000.00 think they might be a bit mad at you
No – that’s the beauty of it – if it dies, they can’t make that angry phone call!!
Seriously, I haven’t actually set up any clients with Asterisk, but I would if the right opportunity presented itself (a buddy of mine has 2 or 3 systems out there.) It is such an incredible system for such a low cost. And if you set it up correctly you don’t have to worry about that $100,000 phone bill.
Correctly… That is the defining word! There are many factors to consider, but one sure way of stopping an enormous bill would be to pre-pay so the most the crooks could run up is the amount you pre-paid! There are many other ways too, but this is the easiest to start with.
Wow, thanks for the great comments and suggestions guys! I’m going to bring all this up in my next article. I’m new to the VoIP world and you’ve opened my eyes to a whole new world out there. I’m now subscribed to Nerdvittles.com to keep up with the latest in VoIP!
Hey Matt, can you hear us now?
Glad you are willing to expand your learning beyond just the regular selections that most people choose (Vonage)… By the way Verizon has decided not to sell their Voice Wing (VOIP) service any longer, perhaps because their FIOS service uses VOIP.
Very interesting and useful post, Matt! I’ve never used VOIP as I just stuck to the good old cell phone, but I know it makes perfect sense for a small business.
Great series idea, by the way. And it was your enticing Tweet that got me here in your comments section. Eric
Haha, the power of Twitter!
You know, you might consider experimenting with PBX in a Flash that was mentioned a few times in the comments above. It may be a good service to add to your cloud consulting work!
I’ll have to check out for sure. I’m always interested in staying up with the latest useful technology. Eric
Not sure, but perhaps this site may be of some assistence: ChooseYourVoIP
Or this one
http://www.choose-plan.co.uk