Purchasing Guide for Small Business VoIP VoIP seems almost magic: The hype makes it sound more elastic, more full-featured, and best of all, significantly less costly than setting your calls through traditional telephone providers. But is VoIP all it's cracked up to be? Are the potential pitfalls worth the potential financial payoffs? I'll help you through the basics, discuss the pros and cons, and take a look at three commercial VoIP services of varying complexity. How Does VoIP Work? Typically, things are fairly easy if you're looking for a hosted service. A number of the top VoIP providers handle all of the heavy lifting off, delivering calls for your phones and software clients without a lot of hassle, especially in the event that you use phones which are plug-and-play certified for your service in question. The majority need no extra onsite hardware besides these phones; at most, you might need to discover a space for a small box of hardware somewhere on site. In contrast, maintaining a self-hosted, onsite VoIP program asks a little more work. You need a supplementary private branch exchange--a VoIP-friendly variant of the PBX phone systems that many offices use --to route your calls into the proper phones in your system, as well as a device known as a PSTN gateway. The PSTN gateway sits between the IP-PBX software and the analog signals of the public switched telephone network, converting calls to and from electronic signs as essential. Whichever option you select, typically you're able to handle the basic settings for your phone extensions or lines over the telephone, whilst tweaking more innovative options requires diving into your provider's internet account port. What Do You Need to Implement VoIP? Based upon the dimensions of your company and also the infrastructure you already have in place, jumping on the VoIP bandwagon could cost your business near nothing, or it could entail substantial up-front expenses. Be certain your internal system--such as your switches and routers--can handle the load, too. Most suppliers suggest using a router with configurable Quality of Service settings and assigning VoIP traffic high priority to maximize quality. If your Internet service provider has a bandwidth limit in place, you should take that into consideration too. In fact, even a large number of people should be able to talk it up on VoIP without having to worry about hitting bandwidth caps, but you will want to keep close tabs on your data usage to avoid surpassing that limit. Small Business VoIP Positives What Makes VoIP so Attractive for Small Businesses? VoIP is cheaper than a traditional landline when you have staff in far-flung locations. Since in-network calls traveling exclusively over information networks and do not need to hit on the public telephone lines, many VoIP providers let you make calls for your colleagues for free, even if you're in New York and they are in San Francisco. Do not worry, do-it-yourselfers: IP-PBX servers can manage remote workers as well. Many hosted VoIP providers provide mobile programs that let you create and get calls from the street using your information link. Usually you can adjust the apps to ring simultaneously with your office phone or to act as a standalone extension. Most VoIP providers and IP-PBX computer software packages deliver a much stronger feature set than traditional phone providers do. Many suppliers offer these innovative features as part of a subscription; even when you must pay extra, the price is usually less than you'd pay a traditional phone provider for the same services. If you need only one line and need affordable calling, but do not require all of the bells and whistles associated with a company line, you might be able to get by with a residential VoIP plan, which you can find for as little as $5 a month for unlimited nationwide calling. Take note, however, that the terms of use for consumer-focused plans typically prevent using the lineup for commercial activities. Small Business VoIP Negatives VoIP's most important drawback is that if your Internet service or your power goes out, so does your VoIP service. Hosted services skirt around this dilemma by minding incoming calls to voicemail, or by rerouting calls for your cellular phone, in case of a service disruption; however that doesn't change the fact that you won't be able to receive or make calls from your office telephones in this kind of situation. Another drawback involves emergency calling: Many VoIP providers don't offer 911 service, and the ones which do tend to charge extra for this or inflict high base-subscription fees. This problem and the chance of a service disruption are the two chief reasons why many suppliers suggest keeping a basic, conventional phone line to augment your VoIP service. Most VoIP services offer unlimited calling from the United States and Canada, but linking to cellular phones or exceptional lines (such as complimentary conference-call providers) might incur an excess charge. Reaching foreign locales can be iffy at times, especially if you're calling a less-prominent country. On the plus side, the per-minute rates are normally very competitive. If you make international calls on a regular basis, you need to read the fine print prior to subscribing to any agency. Ultimately, although VoIP voice quality typically rivals that of a landline or even a fantastic cell phone link, your network grade may seriously affect quality. In case you've got a slow, spotty, or busy network, audio quality can suffer considerably--or even fall out in a situation.