We've been using Vonage in my business (Micro Office Solutions), a provider of managed office space to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. It really lets us keep prices low, both because we didn't have to pay for the setup of a PBX (we can pay for equipment as we go) and because the ongoing operational costs are lower. We have a dedicated data line with a semi-guaranteed data rate and latency, so QoS problems have been very minor. The manageability is a bit of a pain because we have more than 20 phone lines and plan to get up to 200 eventually. That means you have tons of little boxes in the server room, plus the management of billing is difficult because the bills have to be directed to individual tenants. As VoIP sees significant adoption, I am hoping that VoIP service providers will start to tackle the manageability issues that are important to small to medium-sized businesses.
We actually use VoIP at my office: www.microoffice.us/slashdot. It works reasonably well and allows us to provide an extremely cost-effective office suite package (office space, phone, high-speed Internet, mail, meeting spaces, etc...) to our customers. Our customers are primarily solo entrepreneurs (e.g., consultants and freelancers) and very small businesses who are price-conscous.
You really have to be careful about the data network though. We have near-dedicated bandwidth from our data provider, which is why quality is good. Forget about trying to serve business class users with VoIP over cable modem or DSL -- the quality goes to hell when someone tries to download a large file. The QoS really has to take place upstream of you (at the point of the bottleneck). Otherwise it doesn't achieve much.
We have furnished and wired office space ready to go. It's cheap too: $475 per month. It may be of interest to some of you wanting an office away from home in New York City. You get a place where you can work, meet, make calls, get network access, and interact with a community. We have quite a few other tenants who are solo entrepreneurs, consultants, and small businesses, including technology consultants. Check it out at www.microoffice.us/slashdot.
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We've been using Vonage in my business (Micro Office Solutions), a provider of managed office space to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. It really lets us keep prices low, both because we didn't have to pay for the setup of a PBX (we can pay for equipment as we go) and because the ongoing operational costs are lower. We have a dedicated data line with a semi-guaranteed data rate and latency, so QoS problems have been very minor. The manageability is a bit of a pain because we have more than 20 phone lines and plan to get up to 200 eventually. That means you have tons of little boxes in the server room, plus the management of billing is difficult because the bills have to be directed to individual tenants. As VoIP sees significant adoption, I am hoping that VoIP service providers will start to tackle the manageability issues that are important to small to medium-sized businesses.
We actually use VoIP at my office: www.microoffice.us/slashdot. It works reasonably well and allows us to provide an extremely cost-effective office suite package (office space, phone, high-speed Internet, mail, meeting spaces, etc...) to our customers. Our customers are primarily solo entrepreneurs (e.g., consultants and freelancers) and very small businesses who are price-conscous.
You really have to be careful about the data network though. We have near-dedicated bandwidth from our data provider, which is why quality is good. Forget about trying to serve business class users with VoIP over cable modem or DSL -- the quality goes to hell when someone tries to download a large file. The QoS really has to take place upstream of you (at the point of the bottleneck). Otherwise it doesn't achieve much.
We have furnished and wired office space ready to go. It's cheap too: $475 per month. It may be of interest to some of you wanting an office away from home in New York City. You get a place where you can work, meet, make calls, get network access, and interact with a community. We have quite a few other tenants who are solo entrepreneurs, consultants, and small businesses, including technology consultants. Check it out at www.microoffice.us/slashdot.