Anyone who wishes venture into VOIP world, you need to understand this is still a new technology. Although it has been around for a few years, the reliability and quality will be far behind the 100 year old regular phone service. It is really a matter of price versus service.
I have package8 service for almost a year now. I would say the trade off between price and service is balanced.
I got first month of service for free. The phone adapter was easy to setup. Plug the adapter into the router and connect the regular phone into the adapter and you get service. What I get is:
Caller ID
Call waiting
E911 (just recently)
3-way conference
*69
Caller ID blocking
Online Billing with call by call break down
Unlimited US and Canada calling
Low international call rate
For all these, the total charge is about $21 a month including taxes. It is the cheapest among all VOIP providers. Comparing to regular phone service, the service above cost more than $10, plus long distance charges. I make frequent long distance calls which sometimes last up to 2 hours. I definitely recommend looking into VOIP service if you are doing the same thing.
However, as I mentioned earlier, be prepare to expect some problems. Since VOIP relies on your ISP connection, if your ISP (cable or DSL) goes down, you loose your phone connection. I highly recommend to have a backup service like cell phone or a regular landline with stripped down service (about $15 a month without long distance). Just the other day, my ISP went down for 8 hours, so no phone service. If you have problem with this, do not get VOIP service.
I have experience these issues during the year that I have the service base on 3000 minutes calling month:
Line drops during conversation (once or twice a month)
Echoing (redial usually solves the problem. once or twice a month)
Connected buy can't hear the other side (twice a week)
Need to reboot the adapter (unplug and reconnect, once a month)
These are technical problem that comes with new technology which I can accept. I can't tolerate bad service.
Fortunately I didn't have to call them too many times during the past year. But the experience was not pleasant when I did have to talk to a rep. 6 month ago when I need to make a call to UK, it was not connecting. I had to wait more than 20 minutes to get someone. Then I had to be transfered 3 times because no one can figure out what's the problem. Finally after an hour, a supervisor told me that there is a compatibility issue between packet8 and its service partner regarding how many digits UK dialing should be. They said it would be fixed in 2 weeks. After a month it was still not working. I still don't know if it is working since I haven't tried it.
I have not used some of the larger companies, like Vonage, and do not know their service record. For similar service, Vonage is $5 more. I would recommend to do a comparison between a few before decide on packet8.
8x8 monthly service plan + Aastra IP phone = Great business phone solution! Enterprise-class calling features such as Auto-Attendant, Music on Hold, V...More at Staples
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