Hanging Up The Landline
As Web-based voice service moves from fringe to mainstream, more companies see cost savings in cutting traditional lines
"You can save yourself money," says consultant John Lundin, who uses Skype on his laptop at the Rohnert Park Chamber of Commerce.
JEFF KAN LEE/The Press DemocratPublished: Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 4:47 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 9:30 a.m.
From office paper to gasoline, everyday business costs just keep going up.
Facts
GETTING CONNECTED
Digital phone service providers for businesses:
Packet8
www.packet8.net
(866) 879-8647
Jive Communications
www.getjive.com
(866) 768-5429
Vocalocity
www.vocalocity.com
(877) 862-2562
Vonage
www.vonage.com
(800) 705-7092
Skype
www.skype.com/business
ON THE WEB
Sites that offer comparisons of dozens of VoIP providers and plans, and include articles, blogs and reviews:
www.voipreview.org
www.compare-voip.net
One way to beat those inflation blues is to replace the old stalwarts with emerging, lower priced competitors.
Enter the digital phone.
In the past three years, digital phone service has gone from a fringe product for geeks to a reliable, sophisticated, and often less expensive alternative to traditional phone lines.
Companies such as Comcast and Vonage have gained traction offering digital phones to residential customers -- the companies have more than 6 million customers nationwide combined.
Now, several digital phone companies have emerged to cater to small- and medium-sized businesses. These companies, such as Santa Clara-based Packet8, offer a wide set of features such as unlimited national long distance, call forwarding and an automated receptionist.
Plus, as IT consultant John Lundin puts it, "You can save yourself some money."
Businesses can save 40 percent to 60 percent using digital phones, especially companies with large long-distance bills, said Lundin, who works with the Redwood Empire Small Business Development Center at Santa Rosa Junior College.
Typical plans cost about $50 a month for the first phone line and slightly less for each additional line.
Digital phones utilize a technology commonly known as VoIP -- short for voice over Internet protocol -- to transmit phone calls over the Internet. These phones plug into a company's network, or just a cable or DSL modem, rather than into traditional wall jacks. They require a broadband Internet connection to work.
The $1.5 billion dollar digital phone industry has advanced significantly in the last few years, eliminating the echoes and distortions that once plagued calls.
Sound quality is still not as good as traditional phone service. But that's not a sticking point for many businesses that are already accustomed to talking on less-than-perfect sounding cell phones.
Compare features
While digital phones might look a lot like their older counterparts, there are substantial differences.
Traditional phone numbers are assigned to a specific location. Dial your home number, and that call is routed to the copper wires that run into your house.
But dial a number assigned to a digital telephone, and the call is routed to wherever that phone is plugged into the Internet.
Take a digital phone assigned with a 707 area code to Spain, plug it into the Internet, and it will still receive and make calls with that 707 number.
This fundamental difference allows for some pretty neat tricks.
By switching to digital phones, for instance, John Becker was able to easily integrate the phone systems at his two Santa Rosa offices.
"We are able to have calls come in here and easily transfer them to the other building," said Becker, owner of Fort Docs, which helps businesses archive old documents.
Becker started using Packet8 Digital Phone Service in January and hasn't regretted it.
"We are really happy with it," he said. "In our case, we got a lot more features for the same price AT&T charged us."
The features include caller ID, the ability to transfer calls, call forwarding, hold music, ring tones and conference calling.
Plus he gets an automated receptionist that directs calls to the appropriate department.
These features, once common only at larger companies, are being used by smaller businesses to streamline operations and exude a larger, more professional face.
Other features include the ability to check voice mail online, ring multiple phones such as a cell phone or home phone simultaneously, and direct calls to different locations depending on the time of day.
These features are managed online.
Keeping costs down
Whereas larger companies spend thousands of dollars on equipment to host digital phone service internally, smaller business can choose a company such as Packet8 or Vocalocity to do that heavy lifting.
With hosted digital service, small businesses only need to buy digital telephones. These specialized telephones, which allow businesses to easily transfer calls, cost about $100 to $200 each. Because of that cost, switching to digital service doesn't make sense for businesses that don't need extra features or aren't making lots of long-distance calls, Lundin said.
But businesses might find digital phones cheaper in other ways, too.
Jeliazko Jeliazkov, owner of the printing business Digi-Type, ran into trouble when he moved his 30-year-old business from Santa Rosa to Rohnert Park last year.
AT&T wanted to charge him a monthly fee to forward his old number to his new location.
Instead, he switched his service to Vonage, which also provides a service tailored to businesses. Jeliazkov now saves $30 to $50 a month, and gets more features, he said.
A couple downsides
Two downsides to digital phone service is reliability and audio quality.
If the power goes out, digital phones don't work.
Also, digital phones can sound a little rougher than traditional phones. It can sound especially bad if someone in the office starts clogging the Internet connection by downloading several large files and streaming video.
Typically, the quality is on par with cell phones, although digital phones don't cut out.
Also, 911 doesn't work as well with digital phone service because the dispatcher doesn't know where you are. If you took your digital phone to Spain, there is no way for the dispatcher to know that. You can tell the dispatcher where you are, or have previously entered it into your e911 profile.
Another downside is the need to learn yet another skillset.
Linda Darlington-O'Bra, owner of Comfort Keepers in Vacaville, likes her digital phone service, but it required some time to figure out.
"It's a very sophisticated system," she said. "I am the phone administrator."
Digital phones allow her business, which provides non-medical in-house care, to route calls 24 hours a day to whoever is on duty. Those features, combined with a competitive price, make it worth the trouble, Darlington-O'Bra said.
"Now we have twice as many phone numbers, a lot more features, and all for the same price," she said.
You can reach Staff Writer Nathan Halverson at 521-5494 or nathan.halverson@pressdemocrat.com.
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