[asterisk-users] using residential voip for business?

[Michael Graves]

Not to answer a question with a question....but why do so many businesses focus so intently on the cost of their voip service? If we presume that a business intends to stay in business, and 
that phone service is crucial to actually being in business, then  I've never seen the wisdom of going to the absolute lowest bidder.

I work from a home office, and I have done full-time, professionally since 1996. I crave absolute reliability at a reasonable price. I don't really care if its $19.99 or $49.99/mo...as long as it 
works. 

In fact, the most economical srevices that I have used are not the "unlimited" plans...but the per minute schemes that drop the per minute rate based upon greater usage. If I use few minutes I 
pay less. If I use lots of minutes then  I pay more, but less per minute.

For me, with only 6 extensions and not running a call center, I found using Nufone, VOIPJet, Voxee and the like typically cheaper than Vonage...since my real cost varied with usage. Also, 
they support multiple simultaneous calls on one account/line.

 As to the residential vs business schemes I suspect that there's a middle ground that not being addressed at all. Residential schemes are like health club memberships, they bet on you not 
using a huge volume of minutes despite the "unlimited" terms. My Nuvio account is very plain about 2500 minutes for $49.95/mo. That's actually a lot cheaper than my cellular carrier.

Michael

--Original Message Text---
From: Christopher Corn
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:49:32 -0700 (PDT)

thanks for the reply. why are residential lines cheaper than businesses? say for unlimited, it always costs more for residential.

Michael Graves <dickson at covad.net> wrote: I'd just use a service that's being offered to business customers...like Nuvio's nPBX. While they don't support Asterisk directly some of their 
resellers will support using *. I've used it for about 6 months and its been very reliable. The only annoying thing is that they only support SIP connections. The rumour is that they may 
eventually offer an IAX2 based account for Asterisk users...but I've not yet heard if this is actually going to happen.

FWIW, I ported my DIDs to Nuvio so that's where my incomming calls come from. I split my outgoing calls across Nuvio, Nufone & Voxee.

Michael

--Original Message Text---
From: Christopher Corn
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:20:37 -0700 (PDT)

i see. thanks for the info.

broadbandvoice at comcast.net wrote: Its a trickish business, when they say unlimited and you make more than 2500 minutes they cut you off.

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Christopher Corn <christopher_corn at yahoo.com> 
I spoke to a voip provider today who mentioned that though they offer an unlimited plan, if we use it for a business and it is over-utilized, it will be canceled.

is this true for all residential voip plans? i have a small office of about 4 or 5 phones. i tend to chose residential plans because they have the unlimited offer for outgoing/incoming.

thx

From: Christopher Corn <christopher_corn at yahoo.com>
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: [asterisk-users] using residential voip for business?
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:42:58 +0000

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