VOIP Phones in your business?

[Kahns Krazy]

Do any of you work at companies that use VOIP phones? If so, do you have any experience to share? We're thinking about going that way, because it looks like it saves a bundle, but I'm a little wary.

[MFurey]

kahns whats your email?

[Jumpy]

We use them at our facility. They are nice because anyone in the company, no matter the location, is only an extension away, and the entire company directory is accessible from the phone. The bad: they go out whenever the network goes out. Which has been quite often here recently, as the power grid we are on isn't the most stable, causing some very short power outages which are enough to make the servers reboot, even though they are really only blips.

[xu95]

Do any of you work at companies that use VOIP phones? If so, do you have any experience to share? We're thinking about going that way, because it looks like it saves a bundle, but I'm a little wary.

As long as you don't mind losing your phones when your network goes down you should be ok.

xu95

[Pluto]

My office has been on VOIP for the last 2 years or so but the whole company has not yet. (very large bank) We were the test group and they are starting to convert the rest of the company over. The only complaint I have is minor - having to dial the full number including area code to anyone you call outside the bank. The network has gone down 3 times in the 2 years we have had it which is annoying but we used our cell phones/email and had minimal customer impact. I would say the cost benefits outweigh the negatives (granted you have a good network)

[Kahns Krazy]

We're looking at a network that includes some local circuits for backup. I'm not sure that will totally cover us in the event of a network failure, but it should provide some communication option. We're also looking to have our network remote hosted in a facility that has on-site generators and UPS, so any blips shouldn't bounce the servers, but that is a good point. I didn't really think about how a blip in the lights can mean 15 minutes on the servers.


Mfurey, i left you a PM.

[Jumpy]

Speak of the devil, our network partially went out today due to a bad fibrewire. My phone and computer were affected. They just came back up, so there was 2 hours lost. Not that I would have been very productive anyway. But I am going to have to move double speed to catch up on my message board posts!

[wkrq59]

Have used VOIP (Voice over internet protocol) on several occasions when my wife was in London with her brother, the Franciscan provincial. Had absolutely no problems because the net never went down. Both of us were using open-source Linux OSes so that may have been an answer. BTW, my good source tells me Mircosoft will soon abandon , aka junk, aka sh!tcan Vista system which has been labeled worse than the Edsel. Hang onto those XP OSs because they'll soon be all you've got.:D