Hi
Since Bert talked about VoIP (Voice over IP), maybe it would help someone to read about my own experiences with VoIP.
We have 3 separate offices with PBX before, with about 30 phones and 3 fax lines.
The quality of voice of PBX is excellent. Vendors refer to them as cooper lines. After using PBX for about 10 years, we knew a lot of our patients got a busy signal so often that about 9 months ago, we switch to VoIP. We worked with a local vendor selling Samsung phones and the Internet Provider named NU-VOX.
On the Internet, many people were disappointed with the Samsung using VoIP. I think maybe their expectations are too high. For us, the conversion to VoIP is beneficial. I would rate about 8 if 10 is the highest satisfaction level.
Previously we have T1 at each location and 2 separate PBX systems and 1 regular multi-lines phones. With the conversion, our main office has two T1 lines and 1 T1 line at the other office. With VoIP, we save a negigible amount of money but our data systems are faster. For severak months, our computer systems are always on line. In the past, they may freeze about once every other week. When it happened, we boot the systems up and the problem was resolved but still it is annoying.
We liked the VoIP systems because anyone from any location can pitch in and answer the incoming call. Therefore, virtually we have eliminated the busy signal before. On the peak hours,
at least the caller is acknowledged and put on hold.
The quality of voice in VoIP is not as good as the cooper lines. It is about like your cell phones versus the traditional land lines. But it is still acceptable.
I would recommend you to keep a back up regular phone lines
for a few months to fine tune your new VoIP systems.
You definitely need a good local company to help you setting up. For Samsung phone and Cisco Router, I know the software can assign priority for the voice. When there are many activities, your computer systems may be a bit slower because
the lack of bandwidth, but at least the voice is not interrupted.
Fax lines must use analog signal. To use fax lines from VoIP,
you need to have a conversion card from Digital to Analog.
We have some problems with this card so we have to keep the regular fax lines for a while.
But last month, our vendor put in a device called Channel bank to do that conversion, so we have all our fax lines using
VoIP. We have now 5 fax lines over our systems without high cost of a traditional fax lines.
It is true what Bert said about plugging a phone from VoIP anywhere and you can communicate like you are in the office.
The phone itself to be used that way is about 200 dollars.
We don't need that feature so I cannot say anything about how well it functions.
All in all, I like the VoIP systems better than the PBX.
It does save some money for us but more importantly, it offers more flexibility. The quality of voice in VoIP (Voice over IP) is certainly not as good as the cooper lines.
Within your office though, you cannot move your phone as easily as a ttraditional line with jack, It costs us $150
if we have to move any phone to another room.
This point seems contradictory for the virtual phone concept that works everywhere. The reason is your permanent phones in a specific office is not a special mobile type which costs more. I don't know if it is only Samsung which has that problem.
Chris
