Voip reliable enough for small business?

[Mobus]

A family member is moving their business from a currently shared office (with telkom land line) to a home office.

Not missing calls to set appointments is critical. Which would you recommend for their primary business number: telkom land line, a vodacom/mtn mobile phone or a voip number over adsl/fibre?

I haven't used voip much, especially for business. How reliable is it? How does pricing compare to telkom or vodacom?

 

[Purply]

We use Vodacom Fiber with VOIP and it's been extremely stable, might have been off for a few minutes here and there, but otherwise very good for the past two years we've had it.

That being said, we don't make a lot of calls, see below breakdown for last month

 

[georgegolding]

Consider signing up for Fresh Phone (free) http://www.freshphone.co.za.

 

[Wasabee!]

VoIP depends heavily what last mile connection you have. Fibre is ideal for VoIP.

 

[paulino]

I don’t know so far but I’m with voyla.co.za, for my startup.

 

[Obronie]

Let me resurrect this thread.

I want to move over to VOIP (Vox fibre and Vox VOIP), so that part should be ideal. My question relates to the hardware. Currently I have a single wireless DECT phone that work lekker for me at my small office. I see on gumtree a lot of second hand SNOM 320 etc phones for R350. Can I just plug 1 or 2 of those in my router or are they limited to be used with a PBX? I see the Cordless VOIP phones with a base station start in the region on R2k. Is that correct? Bit high?!

 

[pedruid]

Let me resurrect this thread.

I want to move over to VOIP (Vox fibre and Vox VOIP), so that part should be ideal. My question relates to the hardware. Currently I have a single wireless DECT phone that work lekker for me at my small office. I see on gumtree a lot of second hand SNOM 320 etc phones for R350. Can I just plug 1 or 2 of those in my router or are they limited to be used with a PBX? I see the Cordless VOIP phones with a base station start in the region on R2k. Is that correct? Bit high?!

Orbronie, I’ll in the same situation as you. Vox are laying fibre in my area and I’m keen to be rid of Telkom,so I’ll be interested in what you eventually do.

 

[dillydog]

It depends what you are expecting from the system. The Snom handsets are very good phones and well built, but generally when you start needing office functionality, call transfer etc you need some sort of a PBX...If you drop me a PM I can assist with some cloud options if you need.

 

[Obronie]

It depends what you are expecting from the system. The Snom handsets are very good phones and well built, but generally when you start needing office functionality, call transfer etc you need some sort of a PBX...If you drop me a PM I can assist with some cloud options if you need.

Thanks Dillydog. My needs are very simple. Someone phones me I want to hear that person clearly - maybe 3-4 calls a day. I make about 2 calls a day. I had a SNOM phone many years ago in my previous corporate life. and I liked it. My desktop PC is connected via wireless to the router. Can I connect this SNOM phone to my PC? Maybe via its available ethernet port or must it be to the router?

 

[dillydog]

You Snom phone is going to need to be hard connected to the router, you are able to share one cable the PC and NET port do the split. Net is for the Network and PC for the PC, Router should plug in to the net port. PBX will probably be a waste of your money
I would say put in a VOIP number on each phone, only downside is you wont be able to transfer, but you can always add on later. Let me know if you need help, I can also get you clear voip lines, with no monthly charges or minimum spend.