[Lab] Familiar with virtual office telephony options?

[Michael Lechasseur]

Hi Roman and all who took the time to reply,

Just a quick update on the project, I decided to go with www.voip.ms. 
Their pricing is extremely inexpensive and the quality seems very good. 
I've got 13ms latency to their Toronto servers, 21ms to Montréal. Their 
web interface is not fancy but useable. You can create an account for 
free to check that out. Free calling to extensions works and sounds great.

I've picked up some SNOM 715 phones. They're new with the main features 
over others being a USB interface so you can choose your own bluetooth 
headset and Gigabit ethernet, backlit display, and manages 4 identities.
http://www.snom.com/en/products/snom-advanced-line/snom-715/

I paid $127 a phone from Gentek and received product the next day.

Bell's Single Number Reach (SNR) was a serious contender, but lost out 
due to cost and having to download the cost of phones to employees and 
associate the main line with a Bell phone (but could have been a cell 
phone).

Still to find out how easily Bell lets voip.ms port our numbers.

Michael



On 09/09/2014 8:03 AM, Roman Gargulak wrote:
> Hi Michael,
>
> I use voip.ms for business as well as for my home phone.
> <https://www.voip.ms/>
> They have all features that you are looking for, but they do not 
> provide any hardware and you have to configure everything yourself.
> They provide a ticket based support and their guys are fairly 
> knowledgeable and helpful.
> With one DID you can have unlimited extensions, they have a voice mail 
> and virtual receptionist so your configuring options are almost endless.
> You can forward extension to your cell phone (or any number or 
> extension) you can create ring groups o when your extension is called 
> it rings on multiple numbers...etc.
>
> We are a small company (3 people - 4 locations), every one of us just 
> picked up used Cisco IP phone on eBay (they can be as cheap as $35, I 
> managed to pick up the IP7970G with colour touch screen and 8 line 
> capability for $35) and uses that as their phone. calling between 
> extensions is free, so when I travel, I just configure an extension on 
> my cell phone VoIP client (or tablet, or laptop) and call for free 
> from anywhere in the world
>
> Depending on usage, we spend between $10 to $50 a month on the phone 
> fees.
>
> Their termination rates can be seen here: <https://www.voip.ms/rates.php>
> They bill in 6 seconds intervals.
>
> So if you feel comfortable to do setup yourself, you pay only for 
> usage, there are no other fees to pay.
> And we also use fax through voip.ms, but rarely as almost all is done 
> via email these days.
>
> If you have any questions, just  ask.
>
> Cheers,
> Roman
>
>
> On 9/8/2014 12:03 PM, Michael Lechasseur wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm investigating migrating our existing landline 
>> number/fax/toll-free to a virtual office that would have to follow 
>> our 4 office workers to landlines/cell/softphones/SIP phones. Also 
>> provide messaging service when we're not available. Auto-attendant. 
>> FAX reception.
>>
>> www.ringcentral.ca seems to fit the bill.
>>
>> Any other services that I should consider? or avoid?
>>
>> I'll need user friendly access and config for the end user, and lot 
>> of configuration options, routing and scheduling rules for the sys 
>> admin.
>>
>> We're a REALLY small office; 2 full-time and 2 part-time with a 
>> budget of about $100-$150 a month (or less?).
>>
>> Thanks for pointing me in the right direction..
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
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