VOIP Help - Small Business Use

Andycap8

Hi All,

I'm in a bit of a predicament and hopefully someone here can help. I am not technically inclined.

I am shortly moving back to Ireland. My current employer in the US has flagged a potential for me to work as a contractor for them from Ireland. Smallish firm with no international offices.

To perform my job I'd need a phone/phone line to call the US regularly (3 or 4 times a day). The line needs to be high quality as most calls are conference calls so background noise can be a problem.

I'd be working from home where we currently have sky broadand, phone, TV.

I presume sky's phone rates to the US are insane (i can't actually access Sky's rate sheet as it geolocates me to the UK site) so I was assuming VOIP would be the best option.

Could anyone recommend a VOIP service provider in Ireland? Any idea of costs?

Thanks
Andy

Eric Cartman

the best thing to do would be have your US company provide you with a VoIP phone on their system. If they have VoIP locally then it should be easy to provide.

Andycap8

That would be the ideal solution.

However in this situation, the easier I make it the more chance there is of this happening - i.e. I need them more than they need me!

What would that solution involve? Would it be me taking the phone handset i currently use (AVAYA) and plugging it into my modem/router in Ireland then their VOIP network would pick it up? Or is there a lot more involved than that?

Secondly, would it be possible for me to sit in Ireland with a US phone number? i.e. could they transfer my current phone number to a phone in Ireland?

Eric Cartman

Its incredibly possible. I have performed this setup for a few clients of mine with Avaya systems , it would require a few simple changes to be made by the IT department in the US and at worst for you would require a VPN capable modem / router which would cost a hundred or so . It would behave like you were in the office, same extension number, same direct dial , and on their call plan inbound and out. Once its running it costs them no additional money at all.

Andycap8

Any idea if the new sky modem/routers are VPN capable? I think it's called Sky Q HUB?

Also, my office would be in a different room to the modem so could it work wirelessly or will I have to run cabling somehow?

Thanks
Andy

Eric Cartman

Andycap8 wrote: »

Any idea if the new sky modem/routers are VPN capable? I think it's called Sky Q HUB?

Also, my office would be in a different room to the modem so could it work wirelessly or will I have to run cabling somehow?

Thanks
Andy

you'd likely have to add an additional box on to that, I don't think it does or atleast the documentation is too obscure for me to find. for running cables you can use powerline adapters if a cable cannot be run, but that would be the best option.

BailMeOut

do you need a USA or Irish phone number?

I work for a USA company from my home office in Ireland and I use Skype for Business (Teams) via Office 365. I have 6 Mbit broadband and a Polycom VVX 401 phone and the setup works flawlessly. I spend 3-4 hours a day on phone and never have any issues and have a USA phone number from here.

Setup is $24 / month (SfB Plan2 $12/month and USA calling plan is also $12/month). I also have conferencing which is an additional $8/month. You could use a headset with your PC but I prefer the physical phone (Polycom) which there are loads to choose from (Polycom VVX, Grande, YeahLink, etc..)

Remember VOIP calls need less than 100kb so your bandwidth will not be an issue.

Andycap8

BailMeOut wrote: »

do you need a USA or Irish phone number?

I work for a USA company from my home office in Ireland and I use Skype for Business (Teams) via Office 365. I have 6 Mbit broadband and a Polycom VVX 401 phone and the setup works flawlessly. I spend 3-4 hours a day on phone and never have any issues and have a USA phone number from here.

Setup is $24 / month (SfB Plan2 $12/month and USA calling plan is also $12/month). I also have conferencing which is an additional $8/month. You could use a headset with your PC but I prefer the physical phone (Polycom) which there are loads to choose from (Polycom VVX, Grande, YeahLink, etc..)

Remember VOIP calls need less than 100kb so your bandwidth will not be an issue.

Ideally I'd have a US number. I think our broadband speed is ok at about 50-90mb. I'd need to get a handset too - they are a lot cheaper than I thought.

We invested in Polycom a few years ago. It has the funniest, most BS, business description I've come across. Hey, maybe I'll get one of their phones though!

Polycom 10k wrote:

We are a global leader in helping organizations achieve new levels of teamwork, efficiency and productivity by unleashing the power of human collaboration. More than 400,000 companies and institutions worldwide defy distance with secure video, voice and content solutions from Polycom to increase productivity, speed time to market, provide better customer service, expand education and save lives.

:rolleyes:

BailMeOut

Andycap8 wrote: »

Ideally I'd have a US number. I think our broadband speed is ok at about 50-90mb. I'd need to get a handset too - they are a lot cheaper than I thought.
e across. Hey, maybe I'll get one of their phones though!

You may need to set your location as USA to get a USA number in Office 365 but that's straightforward.

Polycom VVX handsets are the most commonly used for these services as are really inexpensive (approx €100 on Amazon) and excellent quality. YeahLink will have a model out in weeks has has native "Teams" that you may want to look at too.