Today in VoIP

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 These days your traditional telephone companies have two ways you can pay for your long distance service.  You have probably used one or both of these methods before; you pay a basic monthly amount usually between $3.95 and $7.95 a month and $.03 to $.07 a minute.  OR you pay a set monthly fee for either a specific number of minutes a month (like cell phone companies do) or a flat fee for unlimited long distance each month.  Cost for this unlimited long distance ranges between $20 and $49.99 a month.   You can see in the chart below the cost break down of some of the most popular phone companies.

Though you may be able to get a basic local phone line into your house for under $20.00 by the time you add in the services you want like Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voice Mail and so on, you will easily pay $30 to $35 each month just for local service.  Add your choice for long distance to that and you are paying $50 to $100 each month for your phone service.

Compare that to the low price of <your price here> a month which includes unlimited local and unlimited long distance and you can see how quickly the savings add up!

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Feel free to use this as you please.  Check the prices shown above to your local carriers and expand it even more.  This makes a great introductory flyer or hand out that anyone can understand.

1st Verizon went after, and won, a law suit with Vonage for patent infringment. Then they went after companies like VoIP Inc and others.  Now Verizon has turned its sites on Cox and Charter Cable. Is this a scare tactic to keep companies from competing against the incumbent phone companies or does this have merit. Verizon is contending that the technical approach being use by these companies infringes on patents and of course no one wants to see someone patented technolgy stolen from them, but where is the limit? What will Verizon contend next? That they created Al Gore *he he*

While reading articles about patent infringement it is important to keep in mind that the sad fact of these issues is that it is not technology that is being defended or fought over but rather conceptual thoughts on how things might work.  Even though Vonage lost the case is still in appeal and more notably even the jurt stated that any infringement was not intentional

Come on Verizon, maybe instead of holding on to the “good old past” and fighitng over idea you should join in and see if you can help us advance technology

Often in sales we tend to become more and more complex in our sales strategies as our companies grow, and yet often the simplest of approaches remain the best.  As the big dogs continue to throw good money after bad at the internet and TV to convince customers to leave their traditional phone service and switch to VoIP perhaps the best sales still is to simply look the customer in the eye and show them how they can save money.

An intro as simple as “if I could show you how you could save money on your phone bill would you be interested?”.  Who doesn’t want to save money on their phone bill?  You have two things going for you that the major telcos will never have;  A simple approach, and your face.  These days we often forget the power of looking a prospect directly in the eye and asking for the sale.

All you need to follow up this opening is the ability to simply show the potential customer an easy to understand comparison between their existing phone bill and the cost of your phone service.  You will find that you win the sale not only because VoIP makes so much sense, but more importantly you will earn their trust and trust will earn you a long term customer.

It seems that the battle for customer base, which is frankly silly seeing how many untapped consumers there still are in the VoIP market, is still being waged on two fronts:  On the one front we have high-end enterprise solutions aimed at large businesses, and on the other an all out cat fight for the residential market.  With cable companies often claiming that there over the internet connection is not VoIP and Vonage trying, it would appear, to target a customer base that doesn’t have a clue what VoIP is, it seems like everyone has forgotten perhaps the best market of all the small and home based business.

With small and home based businesses you can almost always be assured you are talking to the decision maker.  You can most definitely show the owner a wonderful savings analysis.  AND there are a ton of features that in many cases can be included along with the basic VoIP phone calling package at the same price.  Services like automated or online control panel billing, FAX to email, and even Auto Attendant, just to name a few.  These services can give that little edge that makes such a difference in comptetiveness for a small business.  That doesn’t even tap how incredible the home based business market can be.  Many of the residential VoIP market sellers are confused at best as to even service this market.  By doing things such as increasing the price for business use or not upselling to multiple line packages such companies are shooting themselves in the foot.  With a home business owner you can easily get a couple of lines for the home office, possibly Toll Free, the main home number and in some cases even additional lines for teens in the house.  For the same amount of time and effort it takes to sell one line to a residential customer you can have 2, 3 or maybe even 4 or 5 lines.  Now THAT is a good sales strategy!

It doesnt take more then few minutes looking at the latest news to see any number of articles talking about the convergence of VoIP and WiFi and mobile phones. Whether it be FoxNews reporting on new wireless VoIP technology or VoIP-News speaking on the companies that are creating VoIP solutions for your mobile phone it doesn’t take much looking or thought to put together the incredible opportunity the further development of this technology bring to the consumer.

These days almost everyone has a cell phone and the only thing that has prevented the cell industry from completely decimating traditional phone service is the cost.  Imagine if you could have unlimited (or nearly unlimited) calling both locally as well as internationally for under $30 and it was completely mobile and available anywhere you went.  How long would it take for you to decide to ditch both your current cell and home phone service?  For most of us the answer is probably - “how soon can I get it”.

Where are we in the process?  Though the days of a fully integrated VoIP enabled cell service with a coverage area like ATT is a ways off the great news today in VoIP is that one of the key ingredients to make that happen is beginning to come together.  The other key element is the development of expanded wireless networks.  The more places you can get a wireless connection the less need there is for cell towers and the more you can use the internet for placing your call.  As these networks grow the possibilties become endless.

In the world of available IP phones this low priced solution may be just what you are looking for.  With 11 lines expandable up another 64 per expansion box unit and a price point of around $70 you have to ask yourself how much better is the higher priced IP phone to ask so much more.   The GXP 2000 can be programmed via web or onscreen interface, it has call transfer, conference call, hold speaker, and mute built right into it (just to name a few), and most importantly – it works.  In less the 5 minutes you can install your VoIP information on this device and have yourself up and running.  Combine several of these together with a hosted PBX solution and for a very low price have all the functions of a several thousand dollar PBX system at a fraction of the price.

Imagine if every call you made was the same no matter WHERE you were calling.  That is the promise of VoIP and the intent of most VoIP providers.  But let’s face it, most of the world is still using the same of telephone lines from before WWII.  Until the day comes when we can all use VoIP and the whole world is truly a local call the Grandstream 488 is a device you may want to consider.  The key function of this device is its ability to allow you to plug in both a VoIP line as well as a regular (PSTN) phone line.  You can use this for several things including having you calls go through the PSTN if your VoIP system is down.  But there is an even better possibly use for this device.  By placing the ATA  in bridge mode this device can actually be placed anywhere and when called will give you a local dial tone and place the call for you as though you were there making the call yourself.   This means that rather then paying extra for international calling you can actually have this device in that country and make your calls as though you were there too.  For example if you call Frankfurt, Germany a lot you can get a phone number in your local area, give it to this ATA, send this ATA to a friend or relative in Frankfurt and then call that local number and get a local dial tone in GERMANY!  Imagine the possibilities this can provide to your company or better yet as a VoIP reseller imagine the calling plans this could help you create.

I have to say that of all the ATA’s I have used in many ways the Grandstream Handy Tone 286 is STILL my favorite.  It is simple to use with one internet connection and one phone jack to setting it up is a breeze (as long as you have a router).  It also seems like this may be the most set it and forget it ATA I have experienced.  The only time I have ever had an issue with one of these ATA (and I have had one that has been running non stop for years) is that one time when a downed power line took out power for our whole neighborhood the preceding power surge that came just before we lost power seems to have caused one of these ATA’s to stop working.  Other then that as long as your ISP and router will allow you to send and receive a VoIP signal this device, especially at its extremely low price, may be the device for you

As a business switching to VoIP you can either chose to keep your existing hardware and just convert the signal to the internet as it is leaving your PBX system.  This can even be done with a simple ATA.  But you may want to consider switching to IP phones from the start. IP phones connect you directly to the internet from the phone.  The functionality can be all hosted elsewhere and provided to you.  The cost of IP based phone equipment is astoundingly less then anything in the PBX system field.  You can get the same functionality for less then a thousand dollars in a VoIP IP phone set up as you can in a $5000 to $10,000 PBX system.  Most of the things you may want to upgrade on your phone system either come standard with a hosted IP PBX solution or cost hundreds rather thousands to upgrade.  And perhaps most importantly is how flexible and moveable an IP phone system is.  In many cases you can pick up your phone system from location A and move to location B and in a matter of minutes have the whole system back up and running.  Often all that you need to do is unplug from one place and plug it into another.  You can even expand your IP phone set up that quickly and easily as well.  It will probably take you longer to get the IP phone out of the box then it will to have it up and running in your office.  Oh AND you can even tie all of your office no matter how remote together as though you were all in the same room.   Even if your PBX system is brand new you may want to seriously consider switching to IP phones.  I don’t think you will regret it