Some advice pls on VOIP and Hardware needed

Good_Crow

Hi I have a small business and a dublin phone number. I am looking to move the business to Australia next year but will be making lots of calls back to ireland (mobile & landline) and my customers will be phoning me on my old number. Its very important that the quality of the inbound and outbound calls remain good, that I have a voicemail facility and I keep my old phone number.
1) What is the best VOIP option for me
2) What hardware should I purchase (already have a laptop)
3) Is there anything else I need to consider

Really appreciate any help you might be able to give.

guigui

Hi,

I advise you to look at Blueface's Business call plans: http://www.blueface.ie/business/plans.aspx

You will be able to keep your Irish number (it involves a number porting), you'll have a bunch of handy services (voicemail, voicemail to e-mail, fax to e-mail, call forwarding, call conferencing ...). They will also sell you the hardware.

Then, the call quality will rely a lot on your internet connection, so you'll need a good one (here and especially in Oz because of the delay involved).

hope that helps

G.

nilhg

I have two sisters in Perth WA, both have Blueface using linksys pap2 ATA's. One of my sisters has always had a high quality DSL connection and her call quality has always been very good maybe the only slight problem being a slight lag at times but hardly noticeable. I would go so far as to say call quality is better than most calls to mobiles here.

Sister #2 had more trouble, her DSL connection was not nearly as good and call quality was poor at the beginning, I guided her through changing the codec to G729 and things improved but not to the standard of sis #1. Then she moved house and her new house had a much better connection and all the problems dissappeared.

If you are going to make your plan work you will need to ensure you have a high quality broadband connection with decent upload performance.

The ping to my sisters IP in OZ is usually about 425ms, I would think that if it went much higher you would have more likelihood of trouble.
Doing a tracert shows that the connection routes the long way around (UK-US-SE Aisa-Sydney-Perth) so the its probable that pings would be lower from the east coast of Oz.

FusionNet

Hello Mr good crow!!

For starters will you be moving the whole operation to Aus or will you be keeping a small office here? This will in turn effect what your possibilities are. Ireland has currently good a bad track record with SIP Providers. These are the likes of blue face etc which other posters mentioned. Or broadband network in Ireland is so flakey that it has had a major effect on our choice of SIP providers.

Could you clarify a few details:

Will you have an office here?

Do you need voicemail here or on a phone in Aus or just have access to a server of somekind?

What kinds of lines will you have in Aus?

Do you have a max budget?

Is this dublin vital for your business success and if so I would advise you to take a good while to look into this.?

there are some very good systems out there and they dont cost the earth. I can advise you of one or two im familiar with if you can fill in the above blanks for me.

Eoghan Fla
Fusion Networks

Good_Crow

Guigu,Nilhg and Fusion Net Thanks very much for your advice. Blueface with a fast dsl connection seems to be the way to
go at the moment.

FusionNet to ans your question.

1) Yes, I have a colleague staying here but he does not need to be on the same network (I will be making and receiving most of the calls from OZ)

2) Will need voicemail of some sort.

3) Will be renting an apartment. I will get the fastest broadband I can but i guess it will be just standard lines.

4) The business is relatively new so want to keep costs down as much as possible.

5) Been able to port over the dublin number is important but if this was not possible I would need an other dublin number.

thanks a million

nilhg

I know its none of my business but I can't help wondering how you will manage the time difference, unless of course you are going to be handling the night (Irish time) shift

Good_Crow

nilhg wrote: »

I know its none of my business but I can't help wondering how you will manage the time difference, unless of course you are going to be handling the night (Irish time) shift

it will be an evening shift. most of my calls will be to people who work in construction companies and as these guys usually start pretty early I will hopefully be off the phone by 9pm

nilhg

Cheers, best of luck with the move, let us know how you get on.