2015 VOIP Thread

[JosephDeacon]

I have read through the VoIP threads from the past few years and wanted to start a thread to discuss the current trends/best practices.

Specifically, I've researched and/or spoken with:

Vonage Business
Ring Central
Evoice
Ooma
8 X 8

Pros and cons to all of them. I'm most concerned with call quality and good customer service if problems arise. Cost is obviously a major factor as well, but they are all similar on that end.

What are some thoughts about the current environment?

 

[Tkruger]

Keep in mind that call quality is directly proportional to your internet service provider.

Using public internet even after allocating a specific amount of bandwidth solely to the VOIP devices will still create call quality issues.

The best way to circumvent this is to have a dedicated private pipe of internet that is not public. The biggest challenge with that is the overall costs.

Alternatively you can do what we've done and go with 2 different ISP's if you have that available in your area. However unless you have a significant package such as FiOS as the dedicated ISP you will still encounter challenges with overall call quality. Maybe not all the time but the problems will still be there.

 

[radiusbob]

Here are two Additional Options:

Call Center Software for SMBs | Talkdesk
Hosted VoIP & Unified Communications | Jive.com

 

[robtmccarthy]

VOIP doesn't use as much bandwith as you might think. a good router or one with custom software (aka dd-wrt) can easily have you setup with voip and keep that priority over your other internet traffic.

We use VOIP and rarely have problems. Sure occasionally internet blips out or whatnot but that's comcast not my VOIP. Cell phones run as automatic backup so it's really a no brainer to use to drop the hard lines.

We went from $375 a month for verizon to $110 I think on voip? and we have added a "line" with additional incoming #'s.

 

[antek227]

I just started using InterMedia Voice Services and its working great so far.