I switched my business to internet phones early in 2005.  Despite a few hiccups, I’m not going back to landlines.  Internet phone service has too many advantages, which I’ll describe for you.  I also have some tips for avoiding possible rough patches.

VOIP Internet Phone Small Business and SOHO Advantages

VOIP Advantage No. 1: Look bigger.

If your small business has to seem large, a virtual PBX with a dial-by-name directory might help.  These systems cost thousands to install. But many VOIP companies let you rent this service for less than a hundred dollars a month.

Give each member of your team their own outside line.  With most VOIP companies, each line costs around $10.

Get one or more 1-800 numbers at around $10/month.

VOIP Advantage No 2.  Freedom of movement.

Freedom to travel.  When I went to Sacramento to visit a friend, I ended up extending my stay to a whole month.  I couldn’t have done that without regular phone access.  With VOIP, my Massachusetts number follows me wherever I go.  

Tropical adventures.  I regularly work with a virtual assistant company that takes phone calls on their Quebec phone number everyday.  That wouldn’t be so strange except they’re in the Philippines.  They’re using the same small business VOIP phone service sold right here in North America.  True, VOIP companies don’t generally guarantee their services will work outside the country of purchase.  But the internet is the internet, whether in Fargo or the South Pacific.  With the growth of broadband to virtually every non-pariah nation on earth, your second office really could be in a tropical paradise–or year-round ski resort.  Isn’t that the freedom you hoped being your own boss would bring?

Telecommuting.  Feel a cold coming?  Work from home!  With VOIP, even the receptionist may be able to telecommute!

Voicemail by email.  You don’t have to be by the phone to get voicemail.  This is the perfect service for busy people and email addicts.  Bonus: the message (in a file similar those used on MP3 players) can be stored indefinitely.

Internet Phone Advantage 3. Cost

Make lots of calls?  Many VOIP providers’ unlimited-calling plans cost just $20 to $80 a month.

Features such as call waiting, caller ID, hold, call forwarding, and multiple ring-to numbers are usually costly extras with landline service.  With most VOIP services, those are built-in features.

SOHO VOIP: Tips for Making it Work for Your Business

SOHO VOIP Tip 1.  Test internet phoning out before committing.

Yes, some VOIP connections are so scratchy and patchy they sound like cell phones.  That’s usually because of a problem in the internet connection.  Such problems may not be apparent in ordinary web browsing and file downloading.  Go with a service that has a 30-day money-back guarantee.  Try VOIP out where you live and work.  Make sure to try inbound and outbound calls.

Small Business Internet Phone Tip 2.  Phoning from a laptop.

With VOIP telephones, you don’t need a computer.  But you can use your computer as a phone.  A piece of software called a “softphone” uses your computer’s speakers and microphone.  If your laptop is running too many programs at once, calls will deteriorate.  Higher-end laptops shouldn’t have this problem.

SOHO Internet Phones Tip 3. Go with an established VOIP company.

You don’t want to lose your telephone service and possibly your number.  Yet only a few VOIP companies have roots before 2000.  Choose a service with deep enough roots to survive a VOIP industry shake-out.

Small Biz Internet Phoning Tip 4. Choose a provider carefully before putting the number on your business cards.

Switching VOIP companies is at least as much of a pain as switching landline phone companies.  In fact, there is typically no outward number-portability.  You can bring a number in, but good luck taking it with you.  Researching in early 2005, I found no nationwide VOIP services officially offering outward number portability.

Choose a VOIP provider with a 30-day money-back guarantee.  Test the service out thoroughly.  One thing is likely: you may want to switch VOIP providers, but you won’t want to go back to landline.

Why should small businesses use computer security?

Small businesses should use adequate computer security mainly because the threats from cyber criminals, hackers and identity theft are very real.

Added to this, most small businesses also have a responsibility to their staff and their customers to secure the data they use in the organisation. In fact, regulations such as the Data Protection Act require that personal data is secured and used appropriately.

Most businesses use PCs, servers and networks to send and store vital information, often managing financial or private information belonging to customers and clients.

It is therefore essential to have a good security system in place, using at the most basic level the anti-virus, firewalls, and passwords that come with the PC systems.

 What sort of threat do cyber criminals pose?

Your business uses and stores vital information on your customers, your finances, your partners and your business processes.

This makes you highly attractive to cyber criminals, who spend their time attempting to infiltrate company networks and web sites for financial gain or identity theft.

Many hackers will try to exploit small business web sites that have old and unsecured coding, or which run on older or unpatched web servers and operating systems.

As well as this, they will try to encourage employees to open attachments or click on links in emails or on the web that take them to sites that will attempt to steal their private passwords or information. This is an activity called phishing.

How can I protect my staff and secure the business’s computer system?

Securing a small business comes down to having the right technology in place and also having the right security policies, which help employees to keep security in mind at all times.

Any good security policy should include things like using strong passwords that include numbers and letters; not sharing or displaying passwords; and only opening email attachments from reliable sources.

You should also encourage staff to use the web responsibly, and stay vigilant when contractors and outsiders are in the office.

In terms of IT, you should monitor access to the network, including memory sticks and other plug-in devices, which can be used to steal company information.

What security software should my business use?

The sky is the limit when it comes to implementing security software, but there is a minimum level of security that any business should have.

This includes: antivirus software to catch viruses and Trojan horse programs; antispam software to control spam which could contain malicious code or links to hacker web sites; and antiphishing software to detect financial hacking techniques.

The software security system should also have a desktop or a server-based firewall program that monitors your Internet connections; and encryption technology to protect email and other traffic, particularly for wireless networks.

BitDefender Small Office Security (1 Year – 10 Users)

BitDefender Small Office Security (1 Year – 20 Users)

Who are the best established VoIP providers?

VoIP isn’t new technology, as such, and though broadband telephony is likely to become the way we all make telephone calls, you want to be sure that your provider is reliable and experienced.

What’s your existing broadband infrastructure?

Make sure you know how your existing broadband works. Is it cable (eg Virgin)? If so, you could cancel your cable telephone line entirely without affecting your broadband connection. If it is ADSL (eg BT), however, you can’t cancel your phone line because you’ll lose your broadband, too. You can, though use a VoIP phone line as your second phone line which you could use to make your business calls.

Do you need just one line, or two?

If you work from home, either all the time or part of the time, you may want to separate business from private telephone calls, so a second, cheap VoIP phone line might make more sense, especially if your business is growing or likely to grow.

What features will help?

Will your customers be able to get hold of you whenever they need to? Check that the VoIP provider offers inclusive features such as call-forwarding, three-way calling, ringback, do not disturb, call waiting or voicemail sent to your email address.

Call plans.

Think about what you need in terms of the business calls you make. Do you call mostly UK numbers? Or do you need to call other European countries, or mostly the US? Look at the call plans the VoIP offers. Is there a good choice? Is there one that suits you? Are calls to mobiles included?

What exactly does ‘unlimited’ mean?

Make sure you understand exactly what the VoIP provider is offering. If it says ‘unlimited’, does this mean that the calls really are unlimited to the countries listed in your call plan? Most VoIP providers will have a ‘fair usage’ policy. That is, they will give you have a generous allowance of free minutes, say 2000 (about 33 hours a month). What is the VoIP’s allowance? Is your SOHO likely to use more minutes than that? What will you pay if that happens?

What will you pay if you call countries outside your plan?

Check what you’ll be charged if you call countries outside the call plan you’ve signed up to. VoIP usually offer very competitive rates, but it’s a good idea to check. If you think you may make regular calls to a country outside one call plan, it may be a good idea to see if there’s another call plan that includes that country.

What do its customers say?

Try and find some of the customer feedback about the VoIP provider. Reviews from customers, either satisfied or disgruntled, will often tell you a lot about what you need to know about a company in terms of reliability, customer service, technical support, customer satisfaction etc.

What are the extra costs?

As well as the advertised monthly call plan, make sure you know exactly what else you might have to pay for. The VoIP provider may, for example, charge a set-up or administration fee, a line activation fee, a cancellation fee. There may be charges for equipment, too, though some of it may be free.

Is the VoIP’s website clear?

You don’t want to have to root through a website to discover hidden charges and the small print. A well written, professional, clear website, with all the charges clearly set out, is a sign that the VoIP provider is committed to professional transparency.

What’s the support like?

A phone line is one of the most crucial elements of any SOHO. So it’s a good idea to make sure that the VoIP provider offers technical support and customer service 24/7. Can you always get hold of someone if you need to? Do you have to pay for this?

What add-ons do they offer?

If or when your business starts to grow, can you adapt your VoIP phone system accordingly? Find out whether the VoIP provider offers add-ons such as a second phone line, a fax line, or the ability to make calls from your laptop.

Can you keep your number?

If you’re starting up in business, it may make sense to get a whole new business number. But if customers already use your landline number, you may want to keep that. Check that the VoIP provider offers the option of ‘porting’ your existing number to your new VoIP phone provider.

Can you choose a dialling code?

You may want a VoIP telephone number that’s local to you. Or you may want one that’s local to your customers. Either way, find out what the VoIP offers in terms of choosing dialling codes, and check that the code you want is available.

What about emergencies?

A final important consideration is to think about how your business would cope if your broadband connection went down. If that happens, and your VoIP telephone is temporarily out of action, you need to make sure you have a back-up plan (such as a mobile), particularly in case of critical business calls or even calls to the emergency services.

Once you’ve been through this check list, you should be ready to choose your VoIP provider. It shouldn’t take long to get your VoIP phone line set up, and then you’ll be ready to start saving money by using your broadband to make and receive business calls.

The best argument for VOIP is lower communication costs … but it’s not the only reason.

I would suggest using hybrid solutions. Where the bulk of communication, voice, and video are done through VOIP …. and emergency services “fall back” in case of Internet fail is done with minimal classical PSTN solutions.

When I say VOIP from now on I mean 90 % VOIP and some minimal PSTN add-ons.

Why VOIP?

1- Lower communication costs ….

While this is basically clear it still needs to be demonstrated. Assume you have a company that most of its calls are from “overseas” to the USA and vice versa.

You need to get the cost of all such calls currently on one side …. and then compute what would be the cost in case all Intercontinental calls went through a VOIP system.

Now you have the number of calls * local call quantity* local call cost.

You can compare the costs in both situations.

a. I would take the worst case scenario where none of the calls in either side ends in a VOIP end station like Packet8. To make the comparison complete you should add all static costs as well: equipment cost, support cost etc.

b. Simply compare the price of adding a 2MBPS PRI line to increasing your company’s Internet connection BW by 2 MBPS. That will show a lot to VOIP’s favor.

c. Long distance calls are severely affected by duration of the call. While local calls and VOIP goes into the PSTN, are much less affected by the duration. In some places in state calls are not charged individually but a monthly payment is done.

d. Equipment cost per end station is lower. While this is almost always true you need to prove that too by talking to a VOIP equipment provider, for example AVAYA, Cisco, NORTEL. And comparing the prices in both instances.

2. Adding new features to an existing PBX is messy most of the time …. while adding new features, capabilities and capacity is easy in VOIP.

3. A unified communication that has VOIP and IP running on the same enterprise infrastructure is easier to manage …. but of course needs more expertise.

4. You can have ‘local’ numbers anywhere a VOIP provider has a presence. Want to establish a presence in another state or country – start with a VOIP number in the new location that is answered by an existing office.

5. It allows you to virtualize your office. For example, a company provides after hours customer support by employing people to work from home in four time zones. VOIP allows the company’s PABX to be extended cheaply and easily into their home … even though they are in different countries and serviced by different telcos/ISPs.

6. Besides lower costs in contrast to PSTN, VoIP services provide better roaming, a possibility to quicker office relocation and total independence from local telephone companies (meaning that in theory you can buy VoIP services from any service provider on the globe). With VoIP services you can build a PBX which serves the same voice services to all employees around the globe thus making it possible to build virtual offices. You can also easily integrate voice, e-mail and presence services with VoIP technologies.

7. More advantages include …. Ubiquity through Unified Messaging, phone mobility, geographic growth through MPLS networks using centralized services, 50% less cabling in LAN, use a portable with VoIP Client plus headsets and digital/voip phones cease to be necessary, corporate voice can go through a data MPLS network, you can receive calls over the internet on your contact center.

Keep in mind that while trying to convince your company to favor a VOIP solution … it is also important to be open and explain all the pros and cons, everything.

* Quality of voice is similar to regular PSTN solutions but not exactly the same as POTS. It might be undiscernibly but still some difference exists. How close the quality of VOIP depends on how well your company’s infrastructure is ready for VOIP, how good an SLA (Service Level Agreement) you have with you Internet Service Provider.

* When the Internet is attacked intentionally or unintentionally all VOIP equipment, end points, VOIP phones will be affected. It is very rare that a PSTN system is brought down except when a catastrophe happens and everyone is trying to call everyone.

* Voip gained such a bad reputation over the last few years, as everyone still keeps talking about low call costs and free calls. VoIP is a reasonable cost installation but not Cheap at least if you use decent kit. If you try and do everything on the cheap then you get bad call quality etc and loads of hate mail from management.

There you go … most everything you need to develop a strong argument for implementing a VoIP solution in your company. For additional assistance to work through all the specifics …. and find the most cost effective providers (hardware and services) …. I suggest using Business-Voip-Solution.com. Their help is NO COST to you …. another advantage.

The Cable TV companies have a strong position in the telephony market. They already have a large embedded base of customers. They also have a local presence, with field installers regularly driving around neighborhoods and customer service locations in every town in which they have a franchise. Having the field installers is a major advantage since they can install VoIP service and also hook up inside wiring so the service experience is no different than before. Therefore a person doesn’t have to be the least bit technically inclined to adopt the service, thereby opening the market to the masses. The pure-plays like Vonage just can’t reach the mass market like this.

Cable companies also have huge brand awareness in their markets. What is also potentially important is that they are perceived as a utility company and people are used to getting phone service from this type of entity. There is a familiarity and comfort level of going to a utility company for phone service.

They also have tremendous strength in both billing and customer service. While some may hate the cable company because they have lengthy time windows for showing up for an installation, may show up late, and may keep you on hold at the call center, the Cable companies are in actuality very good at managing the complexities of their operations. For example, RCN entered some markets years ago as an alternate cable provider thinking they could leverage people’s dislike of the cable companies’ service record and do it better; instead they ended up realizing how very complex it is and ended up doing it worse. If a company wants to scale as a major VoIP provider, they will have to manage the complexities of billing and customer service. The cable companies have been down this road already.

Here is what could be the biggest factor to why the Cable companies will be most successful at VoIP and ruin the chances of other smaller entrants – They provide a broadband connection. Since this is required for VoIP, the incumbent provider has the first dibs on providing voice service. Also, since broadband connections have high margins and VoIP has low margins, broadband providers could treat voice service as a loss leader to get and keep customers on their high-speed connections. NetZero, for instance, is giving away free telephone numbers and low priced VoIP service presumably with the hopes of signing on users for their ISP. Voice service could in fact become so commoditized that it will be given away with broadband service the same way email is today. If this becomes a reality, there would be very little market opportunity and a bleak survival outlook for smaller pure-play VoIP service providers unless they could offer a differentiated value proposition.

The Local Phone Company also shares many of the same advantages as Cable in that they have strong brands, ability to bill effectively, established customer service, and field technicians. They also should provide the greatest comfort level to people for providing a phone service. However, the Phone Companies have dismal showing compared to the Cable companies who have the greatest number of VoIP subscribers. Verizon VoiceWing and AT&T CallVantage each have only 5.5% of the 2.9 million pure-play VoIP subscribers (Telephia Q2 2006). Those 320k subs are dwarfed by the Cable Companies like Time Warner Cable who alone had 1.6 million VoIP customers as of October 2006. Why have the Phone Companies had such a dismal result? Internal confliction between POTS and VoIP is one reason. They can not put emphasis on a low margin VoIP product in their core offer and have struggled to create an effective bundled product strategy with advanced services. They are also expending more resources and internal focus on better broadband offerings than DSL and trying to break into video services. Nonetheless, they still hold second and third positions for share of pure-play VoIP subscribers and have deep pockets, which will allow them to far outspend a small VoIP provider to get mindshare.

Vonage, with 53.9% of the 2.9 million pure-play VoIP subscribers, is spending a ton of money to get mindshare and customers. This is good in that it raises awareness of the product category, which helps a smaller pure-play. However, it also presents a huge challenge for smaller providers to compete head to head for customers when a single provider has such a dominant voice.

There are a number of challenges facing a smaller VoIP provider. Small providers have to compete for share of voice against companies that are spending a lot of money. As far as the business case goes, VoIP has relatively small margins and the ROI for marketing campaigns and generating brand awareness is a challenge. Yet without spending money on marketing, it is difficult to capture customers.

Then there is the challenge of the market size. Pure-play providers don’t have local installers and technicians, which limit the market to those who have the technical savvy to set up the service or the willingness to do so. If the target market is defined as people who have the technical savvy to set up VoIP on a home network, then this market is comprised largely of younger people. This group is increasing mobile based and has little use for a landline phone. Also, consider how the overall telephony market will change over the years. People in college now that will be graduating over the next couple of years and getting apartments are 100% mobile based and have never had a landline phone. Thus the market for pure-play VoIP will be shrinking as fast as it grows.

However, there is still an opportunity for small VoIP providers in this challenging market. The opportunity is to focus on niche markets and leverage specific advantages of VoIP that are particularly important to specific customers segments. In such segments, word of mouth advertising is a viable strategy if the service can meet a strong need. This solves the dilemma of investing in media to build a strong brand and maintains better profitability.

ReVoS Internet phone service is an example of a small VoIP provider taking just this strategy. They are focusing on a niche segment of people who make a lot of international calls. ReVoS offers VoIP service, which includes unlimited international calling to over 40 countries including the standard VoIP product offering for $24.95 per month. They have also developed a VoIP product that works over a mobile phone that doesn’t require a broadband connection. This is geared to people of international origin who, by the way, have the greatest propensity to use cell phones of any demographic in the U.S. This niche makes sense since carrying long distance call traffic is an inherent strength of the VoIP networks. Also these customer groups are better reached through a niche strategy and would be missed by mass-market strategies. This market is comprised largely of people living in the U.S. who have moved here from other countries. These are tight communities where word of mouth can flourish and the value proposition is strong when saving people money on high cost international calls. This is an example of how a small VoIP provider can successfully compete against much more formidable competitors such as the Cable Companies and Vonage.

However, the future of the telephony industry and the role that VoIP takes still needs to be fully defined and there are many uncertainties. There is a long list of unknowns, which include such things as Google getting into Voice and whether Microsoft includes a softphone and VoIP service as a standard part of their operating systems. Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) is another technology wildcard that could change the shape of the competitive landscape. The overwhelming penetration of mobile phone service and mobile carriers’ ability to steal the show with a FMC offer is very real. This may be the competing technology that upsets the MSOs stronghold on VoIP. The question then becomes which bundled product offer is greater 1) Broadband and VoIP or 2) Mobile phone and VoIP. Another thing to consider is how Wireless VoIP (wVoIP) could change the competitive landscape and underlying telephony ecosystem if municipal hotspots and/or WiMax take off.

Whatever the future the holds, the economies of the telephony industry are likely to place a few large carriers in control of the majority of the market. People want simplicity in their lives and the winners will be those who provide the most seamless solutions to people’s basic communications needs. For smaller VoIP providers to survive and make profit, they will need to meet strong niche needs that get overlooked by the mass adoption strategy, have a well defined and differentiated value proposition (Recall ESPN Mobile’s problem), efficient operations to control cost and low margins, low churn in order to compensate for limited total average revenue per subscriber (ARPU) absent a larger bundled product strategy, and the ability to benefit from viral marketing within the target markets. With all of this in place, there is a chance of survival for small VoIP providers.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• cable companies ruin voip