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Say, does anyone here use VOIP services for the office like Ring Central or even Google Voice? If so, how has it been working out?

we use Comcast VOIP, seamlessly transistioned from ATT POTS same equipment. I use Google voice for my "business" communication outside the office.
Only down side of Comcast, we can have hunting (in coming calls hunt for an open line) or conditional call forwarding (foward if not answered after x rings) but NOT both.

We have used Google Voice infront of cell-phone lines to be able to filter out spam calls, and it works well for that.

For the office, we went to RingCentral even though I could have provisioned a VOIP PBX fairly easily; that would be another system we would have to support. There are several nice aspects of the platform, especially the ability to easily transfer calls even though we are all over the place geographically.

I was looking at RingCentral but they won't sign a BAA. They have something that they call a HIPAA Conduit that they claim is all you need. But they won't do a BAA.

I've been looking at 8X8 who does do a BAA, but Ring Central has features that I like for instance voicemail to email transcription. Google voice does that too.

Easy enough to roll a call headed for VM off into Google Voice for example, use their business apps so that you get the security config, then don't forward out the transcription, but read it with the app.

I use INTERMEDIA [formerly ACCESSLINE] for my medical office
I use TELZIO for another small business;

Indy, I was wondering if I could combine Ring Central with gvoice and get the benefits of both. I'm not sure I want to go with the other google apps. Maybe.

But I guess I can do this with any voip company. Any call headed to vm would go to gvoice, and I'd have the gvoice number set to automatically place all calls into gvoice mail which will also transcribe it and keep a voice recording.

I went looking for the page (used to be free for three users), and alas no more. The business package gets BAA IIRC, but your exposure is limited if you don't have the transcripts forwarded.

Having done 6 VOIP startups (going back to circa 2000) and run two of them, I will caution you that not all VOIP companies are even comparable other than the CODEC they use.

RingCentral has worked well for us so far, and their provisioning is one indicator that they are well engineered on the back-end.

You may be interested in our upcoming After-Hours platform, and we could talk about that off-line.

With something like RingCentral, what kind of hardware do you need to purchase?

With RingCentral you just need VoIP phones. Cisco SPA/Polycoms work well. You can get refurbished units for half price. There's lots of businesses that shutdown or refurbishers who fix broken units. I previously used RingCentral, but I switched to Onsip. Mainly because of pricing structure. (I have many more phones than I do users.)

There is no PBX involved, that's the benefit of hosted VoIP. They charge per phone with RingCentral. Usually everything is unlimited.

VoIP Sorry

We are currently using RingCentral and I'm satisfied with the features and pricing since I really don't have time to run my own PBX right now.

You can pickup Cisco 303's for ~$70 a handset off Amazon, and programming them with RingCentral's tools only takes a few seconds.

The ability to have call queues, hunt groups, conference calls are all useful, but perhaps less so in a single location medical practice.

If you want VOIP for a practice, I would recommend as an alternative that you consider an on-premise appliance where all you need is trunking from the SIP provider of your choice, or throw up a VM and try out many of the open source PBXs out there. A standard Cisco/Polycomm SIP phone will work with any of these. VOIP has come a long way in the last 15 years.

I like Ringcentral. Although they do have the tendancy to go and totally change their website without really telling you or if they do tell you there is no updated videos/documentation on how to do stuff. So you remember you're going on vacation and need to change your message to indicate it and boom you can't figure out because everything looks different. grrr...

Their smartphone app is nice b/c you can call patients and your office # shows up on the caller ID too.

Ring Central has come a long way in ten years. I used to use them for Internet Fax. They were really good but not great.

They didn't have any of this stuff then. Especially VoIP.

Bert - who are you with?

Also, do you need to deploy power-over-ethernet switches with all of these solutions?

I am with a company in Maine called OTT Communications. Reasonable. They do a lot of the backend work, music on hold, VM, voice to email, etc.

INCREDIBLE SUPPORT. Great deals on phones -- like free. We got a DSL line 1Mb down and up for free but that was due to a screwup on their part. Nice to have a completely separate line, and it is plenty of bandwidth.

I also hired a company out of Boston to do all of my audex, so it was professionally done. OTT rotates out the music on hold.

Having the female professional voice is nice. A little difficult to change things out so have to really plan.

Gianni, as far as the PoE goes, it depends on the phone. Most phones have the ability to do it either way. The PoE just keeps the under desk clutter to a minimum because you only have the ethernet cord there but I could just as easily plug it into a wall and ditch the PoE.

I think the best way to look at it, is your main switch should be managed and have PoE capability. Nice not to have to individually power each phone.

You could get by without a PoE switch too. If you already have a large switch and want to add PoE functionality, you can add something called a midspan/PoE injector.

There are other benefits to PoE as well. If you have a UPS, your phones will also be running in case of a power outage. If you use the brick and VoIP, you will be out of luck.

Here's an 8 Port one. They also have a 12 Port Rack Mountable option. We use the latter. There is additional clutter involved though.

http://www.amazon.com/WS-POE-8-48v60w-passive-Ethernet-Injector-cameras/dp/B0086SQDMM

Large PoE switches with 24/48 ports can be 3-4 times the cost of a regular switch.

Another great option is a small PoE switch if you've run out of ports. VoIP is very low bandwith so 100 Mbit is fine. A company called Eagle Eye makes 8 Port PoE switches with dedicated uplinks that can be added to an existing switch.

http://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Port-Switch-Uplink-SW09i/dp/B00H58P8RU

Another important thing to note is that all the phones have a mini-switch built into them so you can run your computer and phone off the same line. However, one important thing many people seem to forget is that lots of them are only 100 Mbit slowing the desktop down as well.

Only certain models have gigabit like the Cisco SPA514G. Sort of defeats the point of getting a gigabit switch without the gigabit pass-through.

It's up to you whether or not you want to run multiple lines. A lot of law firms/offices we work with like the single line.

So, if I only use one cable for my polycon vvx3 and my pc, my pc internet and network speed will probably slow down because of the limited bandwidth of the ethernet connector in the phone?

Correct. That it why it is better to always have the cable-crew pull two or more 'home-runs' to every drop location. For the same reason, it also makes sense to install a two-gang box even if you don't have all four jacks terminated.

The current cost for drops is about $100-$150 per drop when you are talking about having a facility professionally cabled. There is room to negotiate how many jacks are made "hot" at each drop.

In similar fashion, it is better to have two half-filled switches that one fully filled switch, as moving to the second switch in the event of a failure takes seconds.

VVX 300 has standard 100 Mbit ports
VVX 310 has gigabit ports.

So if you had a gigabit switch, using the VVX 300 slows you down to 100 Mbit.

Indy just gave you probably the single best tip in setting up a network. I listened to my network guy but should have even listened more. It's hard to comprehend at first why you would need more than one drop. But, here is how it happens:

You're setting up your network. Your receiptionist has a computer. She will need an Ethernet port, right. So one there. Check. But, then two months later you get her a nice laser jet printer. Networked. Two needed. Check. Then you add the networked all-in-one copier-printer-fax-scan. It obviously needs a port. Check. Then you get a credit card machine that now come with Ethernet connectors (very cool). Check. Then you get a Star Printer. After a year or so of figuring out how to connect it, it takes up another port. Check. That's one Ethernet port for five offices.

It only costs more cable and just a tad more labor to do more runs as Indy says. And, may as well go Cat6 and not 5e.

Or you can pull one cable and buy a bunch of four-port Netgear switches, which will also require an Ethernet port.

Does anyone use OOMA for office phone? Is it really HIPPA compliant?

Does anyone use Vonage Business for phone service?

Also, can you use VOIP service with a DYNAMIC IP address?

Thanks

Not Vonange. I use 8x8.

On the IP address, i'm really not sure. but i know you do need at least 25mps.

http://mingersoft.com/blog/2010/07/no-static-ip-use-dyndns/

Most use static with a business setup, but I suppose you could use dyndns. Wayne, you must have pretty good ISP. We run our hosted VoIP on 1 up and 1 down. But, it is dedicated.

VoIP can be used with a dynamic IP address assuming you are using a hosted VoIP services like Vonage or RingCentral. That's how it is typically utilized too. You can literally take your phones anywhere with an Ethernet connection and have the same number and extensions. Great for people with multiple offices that require intercommunication.

I personally use OnSIP (10 phones in 3 locations). Used to use Ring Central. Another great benefit is the ability to call out from a cellular phone using an app such as Zoiper that will show people your office number instead of your cell phone.

That sounds really high. Typical usage is 100 Kbps per phone. For 10 phones, you would need about 1 Mbps. Good QoS on your router/switch helps quite a bit.

Yeah, kinda what I said, lol. Left off the QoS on purpose, though.

I have Verizon Fios as my ISP

Wow, that rocks!

Thanks for input everyone!

I spoke to 8X8. Dynamic is OK, and 100kbs is enough.

I am just have trouble understanding there pricing scheme.

Since my practice is starting up, currently all I need is ONE phone number, and ideally 2 phone devices, (although one phone is adequate for now). However, they require a subscription for each device. I thought VOIP was supposed to be a affordable solution as I was used to an old-school AVAYA system that allowed multiple extensions while paying for one phone line.

Dino,

Look at ONSIP. They use a different pricing method which may meet your needs better.

VOIP or properly termed VoIP is almost the antithesis of a traditional POTS or plain old telephone service. The latter uses the usual rollover and hunt group for managing calls and requires that you pay per line. VoIP does not place this restriction on you as you are placing and retrieving calls over the Internet. With VoIP, you pay per seat. While this may seem more expensive, it is like anything else in medicine we all know as risk benefit.

If you have a doctor, receptionist and MA, they will likely all need phone lines unless you are willing to wait for an open line. While you are correct that you can use five phones for example and pay for one line, each person will wait especially if incoming calls are saved in a queue. Your receptionist puts a call on hold which ties up that line and instantly answers the next caller on another line you pay for. So you have to decide how many lines for how many staff. Then there's the DID "direct inward dial" to a phone.

With VoIP, while you pay for each phone or seat, they are logged in separately to your switch and Internet. Any phones and all phones can be used simultaneously. So if you have a phone in your office, you can always dial out. So five phones or seats, it is like having five phone lines. You also have the DID to your phone at all times. Again, you pay per connection, so you could use a phone at home if you wanted and it would appear as though you were at the office. I have a less expensive phone at home and when taking call over the weekend, I turn off a phone at the office via the web portal. I do not need a land line in case my cell does not get a signal. Plus, again, the caller sees your office line. With VoIP while you can put your conversation on hold, you "park" calls for the overall network. You can park multiple calls and not take up a line. There is no line, although there are algorithms or systems so that incoming calls will go to a certain central phone. Other phones can be put into a call group to pick up a call and be changed on the fly. Anyone can then retrieve the call. The flexibility with a good hosted VoIP solution far exceeds the traditional pots rollover scenarios. With a good web Interface, the amount of things you can do are endless.

As with me, it will take a little while to wrap your head around VoIP.

If you do use a hosted VoIP solution where you must purchase phones, etc., hold out for free phones. Also try not to completely disable your current digital phone system until you know the quality is there. You need more bandwidth depending on how many phones and you have to look at having a quality switch that is managed and has QoS. Upload speed is also a factor. When our host company set us up, they came in and spent countless hours making sure every packet made it to the correct destination. When for some reason, Time-Warner (which is blazing fast) was not 100% perfect, they gave us a free SDSL completely dedicated to the VoIP so QoS wasn't an issue. Remember, it is still in its infancy, and there is a lot of competition if you go with a hosted solution. So, act interested, then hold out, then start to purchase, then ask for free phones (some range up to $500 -- especially Cisco phones). The application on our receptionist's desktop is very cool. Calls come in, you see the name and number via CallerID. You can park them with your mouse, drag and drop to another phone, etc.

OnSip is pretty simple. It's basically a $50 flat monthly fee + the minutes you use. You can have multiple phones per user which is one of their biggest selling points. Autoattendant, recordings, etc.

So for about $100/month you would get the base plan and about 1800 minutes. The paying per minute is good for a startup who doesn't need to pay for unlimited usage. We conduct most of our business via Live Chat, Support Tickets, and E-Mails so it worked out great for us since we have a lot of people but not a lot of usage. This will be the trend for Medical practices soon too with Patient Portals.

You can also save a bunch by using refurbished phones. Cisco SPA50XG phones are good and so are Polycoms.
E.g. a used 8 Line Cisco SPA508G phone is about $75 while new is ~$150.
Cisco SPA504G 4-Line is $60 used, $120 new.

GrassHopper would be the cheapest as it's all virtual with PC-Based SoftPhones (like Skype), but I prefer the classic desk phone. $50/2000 minutes

More details here:
http://www.onsip.com/pricing
https://secure.grasshopper.com/plans

Again, (not bragging), but we have the top of the line Polycoms. The only reason we got it for free was because we split an office, and they got a deal for free phones. We had referred them.

So we held out for free phones. You have to decide what quality you want. In some situations, it is easy to back track. In a very important business environment, you may want to consider hosting and paying a little more.

@Sandeep How much is it per minute after the 1800 minutes are up?

You can pretend this isn't Bert.

We use Volcalocity (now Vonage Business) with Cisco Phones (SIP) and PBX in the cloud. Works well. Highly recommend them...

Has all the bells and whistles.

It's actually flat rate up to 300,000 minutes. At which point it gets cheaper not more expensive.

The 1800 minutes was an estimation for $100 monthly bill.

With the per user plan:
$44.75 (5 users, 10 phones per user) + $55.25 (2.9?/minute) will give you about 1905 minutes. There's some hidden state taxes depending on where you live (esp. in CA/NY) which makes it more like 1800. All VoIP carriers have to pay some sort of tax in states like CA/NY.

Of course, if you don't use it, it just carries over which is nice. You can PM me if you're interested in OnSIP.