Guide To VoIP Phone Service Providers, Who Can You Trust?VoIP Phone Service Providers Basically what we're talking about here is making sure the VoIP phone service provider you choose is of high quality, offers the features and service your business needs, and also will be around for a while. Why is this important? Because there are so many providers and the industry is still largely unregulated, you will want to compare VoIP services too, to find the best VoIP provider. This means unwary buyers, most of who may not understand the issues, could be taken for a ride with low cost, inferior phone service. Worse yet you could end up with no business phone service, or even lose your main telephone numbers.
Audio CODECS – OK, what the heck is a CODEC? Well suffice it to say it's the software algorithm that compresses and uncompresses your VoIP / voice calls on each end of the connection. It's important because some sound better than others, some don't do faxing or credit card machines well and some take up more bandwidth than others. Since the VoIP Phone Service Providers choose what CODEC they will use (many offer multiple options, a good thing) do a little research on CODECS, so you understand how much bandwidth you need, then stop by my bandwidth speed test article and learn more about the issues.
CPE / traffic shaping - Customer premise Equipment (CPE) many times is provided by VoIP Phone Service Providers for your use. Sometimes this might be to converge the voice and Internet data on one wire / facility (Integrated Access Device – IAD) or it might be a small VoIP router, or as simple as an Analog Terminal Adapter (ATA) so you can use older analog handsets. Whatever it is, make sure you understand the potential need for traffic shaping (allowing VoIP packets to be placed on and from the internet connection first). Issues here are number of concurrent phone calls, adequate upstream bandwidth to handle the calls with your internet surfing, e-mail and other needs all at once. Failure to address your needs here can be burdensome and complicated if not properly reviewed up front before VoIP deployment. Utilizing a Professional Network Consultant (like me) can go a long way in assuring the right equipment is being considered (premise based or hosted PBX and hand sets, proper bandwidth calculations are being done based on the CODEC being utilized. Then the best VoIP Phone Service Providers are approached for bids and the right provider side equipment will be put in place for your business needs. Customer Service - Phone service in itself is a complicated business. Add in new fangled IP phones (or keeping old analog phones…), turning voice into data packets and shooting them onto a public Internet connection that may or may not be built for VoIP and you need all the help you can get, especially if there are issues. Do some research and insist on understanding the escalation levels if you have a problem. What type of support is the basic level? When can an issue be escalated to a more competent person / department? Do they have field techs that will come out to troubleshoot your problem if required? Will this "truck roll" cost you money? When would it not cost money? The larger the provider, the better the chance they will take care of you, but the less likely the total VoIP deployment is going to save huge amounts of money, remember you generally get what you pay for here. A SOHO need and saving 50% of your phone bill is only going to happen with a cheap, no name provider and you WILL have issues (compared to a residential analog POTS line, even with unlimited long distance) On the other hand a large multi-branch enterprise deployment is going to save huge sums just based on the ability to aggregate SIP trunks on a single switch or two, and cancel all those expensive PRIs and other analog lines at all those locations. So we can afford to really compare VoIP services, and then pay for a good provider, with great customer service and still save big. In between we have the mid market, lots of good options but understand what you need, get a hold of me if you want some help to compare VoIP services. Good place to start is with this article click here - Small Business Phone Systems, What You Need To Know Video and UC capabilities - Can your provider offer up all the features you need or want? Do you even know what you need and want? SMBs look at the offering from a single provider, and then get "sold" on the features without understanding the benefits to their business. Things like Voicemail to e-mail, "find me – follow me" and others are really cool, but if you don't even know that some providers offer them, and how you would use them, then you're missing the boat. Compare VoIP services, as well as providers. Remember, everyone wants to sell you something. Most offerings are very robust compared with your "old" phone service. However, wouldn’t it be better to know what shaped peg you need for a particular shaped hole (need) before you go looking at something that might not fit, or costs too much? I.e.: maybe you could have saved even more by keeping it simple! Again, enlisting the help of a good Telecom Broker, like these guys at The Telecom Broker (tell them E-Dude sent you) will go a long way if you're a larger business, spending over say $600 monthly on telecom. If you're spending less than this, check out this cool "VoIP finder" tool CLICK HERE it can help you choose the best VoIP Phone Service Providers for smaller needs. What Kind Of Phones / Handsets Do I Use? - Let's just make sure we're clear when we buy the new service from the VoIP Phone Service Providers that we understand what type of phones we need. Who is supplying them? Can we rent or lease them? Can we use our older analog phones or phone system until we're sure of the quality of this new provider? Remember, once you port your numbers to the new VoIP Phone Service Provider, if you've also gone to IP handsets, you cannot go back to that tried and true "old" POTS analog service, won't work… Maybe you travel a lot? Do the VoIP Phone Service Providers you're looking at offer a soft phone option allowing you to talk over your laptop? Do you have the required headset or speakers and microphone installed to do so? Do they support other soft phones if you wanted to download your own? (many are free)
Garage deployments – Here we have the "computer guy" that woke up one day and realized currently available technology would allow him to use VoIP and become an Internet Telephone Service Provider (ITSP. No real start up costs, no staff, no back up systems, no quality of service – just start selling phone service to YOU, tell you it's great, cheap stuff, and he'll PERSONALLY make sure it's always working right for you… right… Need I say more? You've heard me say you get what you pay for, I won't go into what makes a good service provider here (see above)but your computer guy with a couple of VoIP servers in his garage isn't it.
Number Porting Because porting or moving your phone number is not an overnight situation, making sure you're with a quality provider that's going to be around a while is a good idea. Trying to port your existing number FROM a provider that is in the process of going under is almost impossible. Although multiple federal laws deal with number portability, few business decision makers realize the tremendous challenge surrounding trying to get your valuable existing phone numbers moved from one provider to another when the LOSING provider simply doesn’t have the staff, money or whatever to make it happen quickly and efficiently. Combine with this the fact that VoIP service providers who are sinking have literally thousands of customers trying to port to new providers at the same time, and the problem explodes exponentially. If the provider then also has customer service issues resulting in impaired VoIP phone service, you could be in for a long wait for your published numbers to be moved to your new provider of choice, and maybe with intermittent service or worse yet without any phone service at all! OK, so it's rare, but the reason I bring it up is that you get what you pay for. Doing your due diligence up front is the best way to assure you're picking from the very best VoIP phone service providers when making a change to VoIP, or a new provider. So Do Your Homework! POTS - if it isn't broke, don't fix it… So POTS stands for Plain Old Telephone Service. Yep, it's actually an industry term, an acronym for old fashioned, reliable analog phone service. This is the stuff you have (had) in your home or small business before VoIP. Larger businesses don't use POTS; they use other more robust digital services. The point here is that although POTS is basically mostly available from highly regulated providers. It's reliable; the dial tone comes from the Central Office. You can plug in a $9.00 Radio Shack phone and it works, even if the power is off. So I simply ask you, if you are a SOHO or residential user, with little or no long distance usage, no need for special features and fancy stuff, why would you ever leave POTS? Your answer may be its too expensive, that VoIP doesn’t have all the taxes and regulatory charges POTS does. And you'd be right, at the moment. But don't forget, the government is losing tons of money in these fees everyday, as more and more people and businesses migrate to VoIP. They WILL get their money, and are already making moves to add the appropriate taxes and surcharges to VoIP services for any and all providers to recapture this revenue. Just because a new technology comes on line and it's taxed differently doesn’t mean it will stay like that – no way. Other Issues Lots of them, but in a general sense, choose a good provider, one that has been around for a while. Compare VoIP services to choose the best VoIP provider. You get what you pay for – if it seems too good to be true it is… Hope this has been helpful, remember, if you're a larger business and want to talk about getting the right solution, be it equipment, services or providers, just click here –fill in my contact form and I'll get right back to you. I Love this VoIP Stuff! Your Pal, E-Dude
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