10 replies to this topic

[Business Circuit]

Does your business use any VoIP (Voice over IP) telephony services?

If yes, which service do you use, what do you use it for and what do think of it?

[DaveBradburn]

Maybe a bit out of date now, but I did a fair bit of work a couple of years ago for a company that used a VoIP system. The impression I was left with wasn't good. Call quality was pretty poor and their provider had regular outages, resulting in Internet access, email and phones all being down at the same time. Relying on mobile phones as the only method of communication to clients and suppliers wasn't good. It may be that the provider just wasn't very good, but it's made me wary of going down that route.

[AndyBiz]

I've heard mixed reviews about VoIP, some saying its very cheap and that they haven't had issues, and others complaining about call quality etc. Not sure how much it has come along lately though with increased internet speeds and line quality.

Personally i do use Skype quite a lot to talk to people abroad, and the call quality is ok for what i use it for. But dont know if i would want to risk using a VoIP system as my main telephone system for my business...

[Computerselaine]

We use Sipgate VoIP for our main 'phones and have experienced very few problems in the 5 years that we have used it. Call costs are low. As an alternative we have an ex-directory BT number that we only give to our customers for direct contact with the tech team.

[AndyBiz]

We use Sipgate VoIP for our main 'phones and have experienced very few problems in the 5 years that we have used it. Call costs are low. As an alternative we have an ex-directory BT number that we only give to our customers for direct contact with the tech team.

Sounds like you've had a pretty positive experience with VoIP then. It's something i've thought about doing so will have a look into sipgate.

[Computerselaine]

We use it on a pre-pay basis for our outgoing calls, works really well for us. Itemised lists of who has called you and who you have called are available as well which we find really useful. http://www.sipgate.co.uk/user/

[AdvertBike]

We use Skype which works well for us as quite often we are out about about. If we are and the caller leaves us a voicemail, the message is sent to us by SMS, along with the callers number, and we can call straight back via the mobile.. Nice and cheap to

[Matt Gubba]

We use Skype which works well for us as quite often we are out about about. If we are and the caller leaves us a voicemail, the message is sent to us by SMS, along with the callers number, and we can call straight back via the mobile.. Nice and cheap to

Thats quite a nice feature, do they charge for the SMS? Not something I knew that they offered.

[MattC]

We use VoIP as we have a London head office but a number of remote workers dotted around the country (Manchester, Wiltshire, Norfolk, Kent) and use a company Voipfone http://www.voipfone.co.uk

Our experience has been very good. The call quality is better than a BT line, the only outage I personally had was when the broadband went down.

It's very cheap for landline calls (they make their money for mobile calls - 10p per minute) and their customer service is very good...

Defo recommended... (should ask them for some commission I think)

[AdvertBike]

Thats quite a nice feature, do they charge for the SMS? Not something I knew that they offered.

They do, I think its about 10p a text, which is great You dont really notice this though when you add the monthly credit

[Matt Gubba]

Seem to be some great positives coming out here. It would appear that VoIP is definitely an avenue worth exploring in order to save some money then.

We use VoIP as we have a London head office but a number of remote workers dotted around the country (Manchester, Wiltshire, Norfolk, Kent) and use a company Voipfone http://www.voipfone.co.uk

Our experience has been very good. The call quality is better than a BT line, the only outage I personally had was when the broadband went down.

It's very cheap for landline calls (they make their money for mobile calls - 10p per minute) and their customer service is very good...

Defo recommended... (should ask them for some commission I think)

I think i've seen them around before actually Matt. Thanks for the recommendation

Thats quite a nice feature, do they charge for the SMS? Not something I knew that they offered.

They do, I think its about 10p a text, which is great You dont really notice this though when you add the monthly credit

That isnt bad at all. Could be very useful if you're on the move a lot.