As all of us in the know, know, the Voip marketplace is an over-crowded melee of companies eager to take advantage of the seemingly endless procession of customers jumping ship from tired analogue communications networks and flocking to the shores of Voice Over IP technology. But how do you go about choosing the right provider?
But how to go about such a task? Well, for starters, you need to know which questions to ask - but more than that you need to know the correct answers to listen out for. And given the saturation of the ISP marketplace, there will always be another company waiting to give you the answer that you're looking for.
The first question to ask is "What are the real start-up costs?" Advertised start-up costs are one thing, but actual start up costs include items such as setup fees, activation fees, equipment costs & porting fees. As well as this, IP phones can be expensive and you may well need to supply a new phone at every desk.
It is also worth noting that the cost of IP phones can mount up quickly if you need to supply a new handset at each desk. Next question is to ask about their technical support. In particular you should enquire as to how their support is set up, in so much as, if things go wrong will you be able to talk to someone about it or will you have to wait for someone to get back to you.
For example, will you only require support during working hours (8-6)? Or will you require 24 hour support? Do you have people who work for you remotely and travel abroad? And if so will they also be able to access support from a separate country?
Next line of enquiry should concern their server. You want to know how often it has crashed and what their redundancies are, although it is very likely that most companies will not want to disclose such information - or will at least try and sugarcoat it - so carrying out some background research online will probably be called for.
Another worthwhile investment of time is checking a company's social media streams in order to gauge how well and quickly they responded to past troubles once they arisen. As far as redundancies are concerned, these are the 'failsafe' servers that are in place in case there is a fault with one of their main servers. Adequate redundancies are essential to ensure optimum and un-interrupted performance at all times.
And there are other questions such as what are the termination costs? that are always useful to know. But hopefully this outline guide has helped you to appreciate that the most important points to raise with a potential service provider are the ones that they would not otherwise want to mention.
But how to go about such a task? Well, for starters, you need to know which questions to ask - but more than that you need to know the correct answers to listen out for. And given the saturation of the ISP marketplace, there will always be another company waiting to give you the answer that you're looking for.
The first question to ask is "What are the real start-up costs?" Advertised start-up costs are one thing, but actual start up costs include items such as setup fees, activation fees, equipment costs & porting fees. As well as this, IP phones can be expensive and you may well need to supply a new phone at every desk.
It is also worth noting that the cost of IP phones can mount up quickly if you need to supply a new handset at each desk. Next question is to ask about their technical support. In particular you should enquire as to how their support is set up, in so much as, if things go wrong will you be able to talk to someone about it or will you have to wait for someone to get back to you.
For example, will you only require support during working hours (8-6)? Or will you require 24 hour support? Do you have people who work for you remotely and travel abroad? And if so will they also be able to access support from a separate country?
Next line of enquiry should concern their server. You want to know how often it has crashed and what their redundancies are, although it is very likely that most companies will not want to disclose such information - or will at least try and sugarcoat it - so carrying out some background research online will probably be called for.
Another worthwhile investment of time is checking a company's social media streams in order to gauge how well and quickly they responded to past troubles once they arisen. As far as redundancies are concerned, these are the 'failsafe' servers that are in place in case there is a fault with one of their main servers. Adequate redundancies are essential to ensure optimum and un-interrupted performance at all times.
And there are other questions such as what are the termination costs? that are always useful to know. But hopefully this outline guide has helped you to appreciate that the most important points to raise with a potential service provider are the ones that they would not otherwise want to mention.
About the Author:
Saul Saresi writes regularly about Voip technology and systems for his site VoIPDito cloud telephony More information about Voip can be found by visiting here voip for business
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