Flat Rate Toll Free Numbers

How would you like to have a toll free number for your business without the worry that you’ll never know how big your bill will be each month? What you are looking for is flat rate toll free service. Your bill is the same every month and you’ll get dozens of features included at no extra cost. Best of all, there’s no risk to try it because you can get a 14 day free trial of flat rate toll free service.

The flat rate service from iTeleCenter is just $49 a month for unlimited calls. You pay no per minute charges, no extra fees for features, no activation fees, no surcharges or hidden fees, no confusing plans and no contracts.

What are some of those special calling features? You get professional grade business phone service such as an auto attendant with main greeting voicemail to email or text transmission, multiple extension mailboxes, online faxing, follow-me call forwarding and 30 additional features.

How about the numbers available? You have two choices in how you pick your toll free number. The first way is to simply select from a list of 10 assorted numbers that are available. These have the prefixes 800, 866, 877 and 888. If you see one you like, just click on the radio button and proceed to order it. If not, then click the “generate more numbers” button and you’ll get a new list.

The other method is to search for a custom vanity number. What is a vanity number? That’s a phone number that spells out a word or phrase using the letters that appear on the numbers of the telephone dial. You can specify any available toll free prefix, or limit your search to 855 or 866 or 877 or 888. You can also use * for wildcard digits. Those are digits where you really don’t care what number comes up. Let’s try a couple of examples and see what we get.

Say you’re in the water conditioning business and want a memorable toll free number to advertise. We’ll say any prefix is OK and that we want the term “water” to be in the toll free number. Enter “water” into the search box and press the search button. Voila! Here’s what we get. There are 10 different toll free numbers available and they all spell out water within the number. You can choose from (877) 95WATER, (855) 60WATER, (877) WATGER88 and another seven options. Don’t much care for these? Click on the Generate More Numbers button and you’ll get another 10 options. These include (855) WATER08, (855) WATER30 and seven more that are similar.

Got the idea? You may want to play around with this search engine a bit to get something that relates to your business and is easy to remember. Note that 855 is a newly added toll free prefix. You’ll likely have more options with the 855 prefix than the others because it has only been available for about a year.

What makes this system better than old-school toll free number ordering is both the interactive vanity search feature plus instant availability of your chosen toll free number. That’s right. You select the number you want and then place your order online right away before anybody else gets the same idea. That starts your 14 day free trial period. Play around with the features, decide how much of an asset this is for your business, and keep using that number as long as you keep your toll free service.

Get a Toll Free Number Instantly

You’re starting a new business or breathing new life into an existing one. You’ve come to the conclusion that a toll free number will help you get more sales prospects and orders. It will also improve your reputation for fast and easy customer service. Now that you’ve made the decision you’d love to get started right away. But you have to wait at least a week to establish a toll free number, right?

Wrong! You can have your toll free number up and running in less time that it takes you to read this article. If you don’t want to wait even that long,order and activate your toll free number now. Yes, you can have an 800, 855, 866, 877 or 888 toll free number for your business or personal use as close to instantly as possible.

How does this work. It’s all thanks to the highly efficient online provisioning process from Kall8. They have gone to the trouble of setting up a large collection of toll free numbers, so all you have to do is select one you like the look or sound of and place your order. You pay for these with a credit card that is also billed monthly for your service, so there is no long approval process involved.

How much will a toll free number set you back? Hold on to your chair so you fall off. The cost is just $2 each for 888, 877, 866 or 855 prefixes. That’s what you pay to get your number assigned and set up for use. Then the cost is just $2 a month to maintain service plus the cost of incoming calls on a per minute basis.

Note that the older 800 toll free numbers are slightly more expensive. Those are $5 each and $5 per month plus the cost of calls.

There are even more expensive vanity numbers that spell out specific words on the telephone keyboard to make them easier to remember. Examples of numbers now on the vanity list are 1-877-9-Alimony (1-888-925-4666) and 1-877-5-BIGMONEY (1-877-524-4666). The prices on these vary from $15 to over $100 for setup and monthly fee. What’s an example of an expensive one? How about 1-877-5-MESOTHELIOMA (1-877-563-7684).

What do you get with your Kall8 toll free service? First, you get your number ready to use as soon as you complete the order process that takes only a few minutes. You specify which phone you want incoming calls to go to. These numbers don’t have their own phone line. Instead, you program them to ring to your office phone, home phone, cell phone or other phone that you’ll be near. You can change this ring-to number any time as your location changes so that you’ll never miss a call.

Do you get voice mail? Yes, it’s included. You can call in to get messages from the system or have them sent to you as attachments to your email. That way you can hear your messages on your computer without having to pick up a phone. You’ll also be able to get FAX messages sent to your email as attachments. No need for a separate fax machine to get messages. Just tell clients to send them to your toll free number.

Other features include call blocking, maximum call length setting, Caller ID, and even conference calling with up to 25 participants. These features are included as part of your monthly service fee, starting at just $2 per month.

How much will you pay for calls? The cost to the caller is free, of course. You pay 6.9 center per minute for calls from the 48 US states and Canada. There is a surcharge for calls that come in from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Saipan. Payphone callers will cost you an extra 60 cents per call, per FCC tariff.

With toll free numbers as cheap as $2 each and $2 a month, plus 6.9 cents a minute for most incoming calls, it’s hard to go wrong getting a toll free number for your business. There are no contacts involved, so if you don’t want the service anymore, you can simply cancel and only pay for the usage to date.

Flat Rate vs Per Minute Toll Free Service

Nearly all companies that sell to the public have or need toll free telephone numbers. People come to expect a toll free number for ordering or customer service. If they have to pay to call you, they may think twice and go elsewhere. It’s a bit like free WiFi. There are so many places that offer it that the ones that don’t seem less desirable. But, did you know that there are two types of toll free services to choose from?

The two fundamentally different approaches to toll free number service are pay per minute and flat rate. Flat rate means you pay a fixed amount each month regardless of how many or few calls come in.

Note that as the business owner you pay for all calls that come into your toll free number. The caller isn’t charged, and that’s the way they like it.

The way pay per minute services work is that the meter starts running as soon as you pick up a ringing toll free call. An excellent service that works on the pay per minute basis is Kall8. For each minute that you are on the phone with a customer or prospect that calls in on your toll free number, you pay 6.9 cents per minute. That rate applies to all calls coming in from the lower 48 US states. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii have a surcharge.

What happens if you don’t have any toll free calls during a particular month? In that case, you pay just the fee to maintain your number. It’s $2 for 866, 877 or 888 numbers and $5 for 800 numbers. All of those prefixes are toll free. Some companies prefer actual 800 numbers because people know what an “800 number” is. Others are fine with the newer 866, 877 or 888 numbers that are also toll free.

For your, say, $2 per month you have exclusive use of your toll free number. It will ring to any phone that you program it to. It’s not a separate line with a separate telephone hooked to it. For instance, you can program your toll free number to ring to your cell phone while you are out and about, change it to ring to your desk phone when you are in the office and even change it again to ring to your home phone so you don’t miss calls in the evening or overnight.

Some other features you get with your Kall8 toll free number are voice mail that you can use the conventional way or have your messages sent to you as audio files attached to email messages. You can block calls from people or areas you don’t want to deal with, conduct conference calls with up to 25 participants and receive FAX messages to your toll free number. The messages can be read online or sent to you as email attachments. That’s a lot of capability for a mere $2 a month.

The competing service is flat rate toll free. A good example is iTeleCenter toll free service that costs $49 a month. For that you get to pick your number from a list of available toll free numbers that are ready to use. You also enjoy 30 features that include online faxing, follow-me call forwarding, and voicemails sent to email or text messages at no additional charge. What’s more, there’s a 14 day free trial so you can see if you like this service before you commit to it.

It should be noted that “unlimited” calling is actually limited to a fair usage amount of 1,000 minutes per month. If business booms and you talk more than this, you’ll pay an overage charge of 4.9 cents per minute. That compares to 6.9 cents per minute for each minute on Kall8.

So, how do you choose between the two toll free services? The pay per minute plan works well for companies with widely varying phone traffic each month or for startups that don’t expect many calls for a long while. Your expenses expand at the same rate that your business grows. However, if you get lucky and your phones ring off the hook you’ll be paying more than you would with the flat rate plan.

Flat rate toll free service is great if you don’t like surprises and want to know what to budget for incoming calls each month. If you are a very small operation and it takes forever to get business going, you will pay more during the slow times than you would with pay per minute toll free service. However, if all of a sudden business takes off, you have the protection of the flat rate. Even overages will cost less than on the pay per minute plan.

Pick Unlimited Toll Free Numbers

You know that having a toll free number is good for business. In fact, it’s so good for business that customer calls can start flooding in once you’ve gotten the word out that people can call you for free. Now, if you could just protect yourself against the cost of that onslaught. Wait! You can.

The service you want is unlimited toll free numbers. By unlimited, I mean you pay one small price per month for the complete sophisticated toll free service. No ugly surprises on your credit card. Within the limits of fair use, your toll free service is one flat rate and that’s that.

Well, you actually get a lot more than simply the peace of mind that comes from knowing what your toll free bill will be each month. This unlimited toll free service has over 30 features that you might think would cost extra. Not with iTeleCenter unlimited toll free numbers. Their toll free service offers an auto attendant or main greeting feature so you don’t need to hire a receptionist to screen your calls. You not only get voicemail, but voicemail messages sent to email or text to your cell phone. You also get online faxing and follow me call forwarding. Plus there are 30 other calling features, too.

Don’t these features sound like something you’d expect to pay big bucks for with a sophisticated business phone system? Yes they do. What’s more, with most phone services you have to pay extra for a toll free number and then pay extra per minute for every call you receive. Outrageous! That’s yesterday’s telecom service. Today’s service is one flat monthly rate that includes all phone services plus the toll free number of your choice.

Yes, you get to select your toll free number from an inventory of 800, 866, 877 and 888 numbers that are all set up and ready to use. Other companies expect you to wait for days or weeks while they do their job of preparing a toll free number of their choice for your use. Forget that. You pick the number using the handy number search box (like the screen shot shown on this page) and then proceed to grab it for your exclusive use. How long does that take? Just a few minutes. The entire process is automated online and available 24/7. If you want toll free service at 3 in the morning, go right ahead and get it. They’re always open for business.

What you get with this unlimited toll free number service is pretty amazing. What you don’t have to deal with is equally impressive. You don’t get stuck paying per minute charges for your incoming toll free calls. They’re all included in the low monthly rate. You don’t pay any activation fees. Those can be substantial with other services and you may not even find out about them until you are ready to check out. There are no extra fees for any of the calling features - they are all included. There are no surcharges or hidden fees, either.

Sounds pretty good, but you’re still not sure? What would you say if I told you that there are no contracts involved. What if it were so completely risk free that you can try it for free? That’s right. You can start your 14 day free trial right now. Give it a good shakedown and then decide if this unlimited toll free number service is right for your business. Chances are that you’ll like it so much that you’ll never shop around again.

I’ve saved the best for last. This impressive service is just $49 per month for unlimited calls. Yes, that low rate plus NO contracts to sign and a 14 day FREE trial just to make sure you’re happy.

Voice And Data On One Line

Nearly all businesses today have a need for both telephone and broadband Internet service. Most businesses installed telephone first and Internet later. That’s led to a mix of line services to meet specific needs. Is there a better solution?

Today’s digital technology allows you to have both telephone service and broadband Internet access coming in on a single line. That often offers considerable cost savings over two separate services. But what about quality of service?

You might cringe at the thought of combined telephone and Internet if you’ve had a bad experience with VoIP over residential broadband. Usually it’s the phone service that suffers. Voices get garbled, you may hear an echo on the line, people start talking over each other with a delay in the speech, and calls can even be dropped. That’s what can happen when you just plug a VoIP phone or adaptor into a shared broadband service with uncontrolled bandwidth.

There are much better solutions available for business users. VoIP telephony can sound excellent and be as stable as traditional analog telephony. The trick is to carefully engineer the line to ensure adequate bandwidth, jitter, latency and voice packet priority.

A service called Integrated T1 does just this. A single T1 line with 1.5 Mbps dedicated bandwidth in both directions connects the business location to the service provider. There are no other users sharing this line. A specialized router called an Integrated Access Device converts analog telephony signals to digital packets. Those voice packets are assigned a portion of the line bandwidth to ensure they don’t get overwhelmed by data packets from Web sites and other Internet services. This bandwidth is assigned dynamically. As more phones are in use, more bandwidth is reserved for phone calls. When calls hang up, that bandwidth is reassigned for broadband Internet access.

Integrated T1 service works best for smaller businesses that need 6 to 12 phone lines plus modest broadband Internet service. It is possible to add more bandwidth as the business grows by bonding additional T1 lines.

Another service that combines voice and data on a single line service is called SIP Trunking. SIP is the signaling protocol used by enterprise VoIP telephone systems. You may already have a VoIP telephone system in your office. If so, you can get both voice and broadband Internet service over a SIP trunk. Like Integrated T1, SIP trunking manages quality of service to ensure that data and voice packets don’t interfere. SIP trunks, however, can have much higher bandwidth that T1 lines. Large SIP trunks can carry hundreds or even thousands of telephone calls.

Are Integrated T1 or SIP Trunking the right solution to give your company a substantial cost savings? Find out with a competitive service quote from Enterprise VoIP. You may be paying far more than you need to with your existing mix of telephone and broadband services.

POTS Panned

The days of POTS or Plain Old Telephone Service seem to be numbered. The FCC put out a request for comments on how service providers are migrating to IP networks. In response, AT&T asked the FCC to shut down the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network and the plain old telephone service that it has supported for over 100 years.

OK, it’s a new century. It’s also true that new network architectures are packet switched rather than circuit switched. But is it really time to give POTS the old heave-ho?

I’ve got my doubts. Mostly because I remain unconvinced the Internet is up to the job. VoIP over DSL or Cable broadband is a dicey thing. It’s a lot like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When it’s good, it’s very good. When it’s bad, it’s horrid. If you really think that sounding like you’re deep sea diving or chopping off each other’s sentences is acceptable telephony, then have at it. But please don’t call me until you get that fixed.

What’s at the heart of this problem is the elephant in the policy room called network neutrality. Proponents want absolute equality of access for all. That means you can’t do anything to favor one packet over another. Mandating that all packets get equal treatment protects us, at least in theory, from network operators favoring one content provider over another and ruining the democracy of the Internet. Unfortunately, such a superficial approach prevents implementation of any quality of service measures that could ensure that each packet gets the network performance it needs. As a result, TCP/IP guarantees that non-time critical text files are perfectly transferred, while time critical voice and video streams may or may not get the low latency, congestion, and packet loss characteristics they need to maintain signal integrity.

On the Internet, you launch your packets and you take your chances. Contrast that with the dedicated channels of switched circuit networks. There’s no comparison when it comes to reliable and repeatable call quality. For many consumers, that may or may not matter. We’ve gotten use to variable performance on the cellular phone system. People no longer expect to hear a pin drop. They simply want to communicate when and where they feel like at a moment’s notice. In fact, it’s the rush to cellular rather than VoIP that is the main reason so many people are abandoning their landline phone service.

It’s understandable that AT&T and the other traditional telephone companies are feeling trapped between two worlds. They’re stuck maintaining a costly investment in analog POTS lines and their associated interfaces and switches at the central offices. At the same time, there are fewer and fewer users to amortize the cost. They can’t raise prices without risking that the remaining satisfied users will revolt and move to cell phones or VoIP services.

What are businesses doing? The ones with more than a line or two are going digital, but not on the Internet. A business of any size that has a PBX phone system on-premises has options. The legacy solution is ISDN PRI or T1 PRI, a digital telephone trunking system that aggregates up to 23 outside lines. Oddly enough, this is a PSTN technology but it doesn’t depend on analog POTS service being available. The other option is SIP trunking, a packet network technology. The difference between a SIP trunk and an analog telephone adaptor connected to the Internet is that the SIP trunk runs on a private network where quality of service can be assured. The SIP trunk may be set up to provide both telephone and broadband Internet service on the same line without quality issues.

Realistically, the days of POTS may be coming to an end. We got through the analog to digital television transition and we’ll weather whatever chaos ensues when analog telephony is no more. One key issue that will be hotly debated is the decommissioning of copper phone lines at the same time the dial tone is disconnected. Copper is likely to persist long into the future. T1 and ISDN lines are provisioned over standard twisted pair copper. So is EoC or Ethernet over Copper that uses multiple copper pair to transport mid-bandwidth Ethernet service. The replacement for copper is fiber, and there is precious little of that in the ground right now.

Phone Power’s $14.95 A Month VoIP Service

Are you interested in VoIP phone service, but horrified by the costs involved? What’s that about anyway? The whole idea behind VoIP as a replacement for landline telephone service is that it’s supposed to cost less, not more. Well, there’s still hope. Phone Power is offering their full featured residential and home office VoIP service for just $14.95 a month.

Now that’s more like it. There’s no good reason to reason to pay $25 or $35 a month for local and long distance calling when you can get service just as good or better for $14.95 a month. But is it really as good? Let’s take a look at what you get for your VoIP dollar.

First, you get unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada. Unlimited, that is, if you are among the 99.9% of users who use less than 5,000 minutes a month. Extra minutes are just 2 cents each, less than you'll pay with just about any long distance service. So go ahead and chat to your heart's content.

You also get to keep your current phone number. Just transfer your number for free for the convenience of everyone who calls you now, or get a new number to start with a clean slate.

Here’s something you won’t get elsewhere. It’s a cloned second line. This included feature makes use of the fact that there are two telephone ports on the adaptor box that connects your phone to your broadband router or modem. You can plug two phones in the adaptor. When a call comes in, both phones ring. If you are on one phone, only the other one rings. But here’s the really cool feature. Two people can call out to different numbers at the same time. You just have one incoming phone number. By cloning, you get to handle two calls at once on that single line.

Phone Power VoIP service includes over 25 other features at no extra cost. You get the expected Caller ID with name support, voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, and E911. But you also get extras like find me - follow me, voicemail to email, anonymous caller rejection, do not disturb, simultaneous ring to your home, work and cell phones, and specific number block list. Check the complete features list and you’ll be delighted how much you get that you’d pay more for with other services.

Phone Power’s $14.95 a month VoIP service is a real bargain compared to what the telecom carriers or those heavily advertised services charge. This offer is a two year plan that comes with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. You can also get one year and monthly plans for a bit more. But here’s the special deal for new customers that really can’t be beat. If you prepay for 12 months of service at $199.95, Phone Power will give you a second year free. Divide 199.95 by 24 months and you get $8.33 a month. Yes, it’s fantastic but this is a special promo offer that won’t last long. If you want it, better grab it quickly.

So, does Phone Power look like the VoIP phone service that you’ve been wanting all along? If so and you have DSL or Cable broadband already, then learn more about Phone Power and order your service plan quickly and easily online.

The Post Paid Calling Card Advantage

You’re familiar with prepaid calling cards. The almost jump off the rack at you when you walk by them at the convenience store. But there is a type of calling card that is even more convenient than the ubiquitous prepaid card. It can also save you money on your domestic and international calls. Meet the the postpaid calling card.

As you might guess, post pay is the opposite of prepay. You plunk down $10 or $20 for a prepaid calling card and are given a certain number of minutes to a particular country. The higher the rate for calls to that country, the fewer minutes you’ll get. You also pay service fees, connection fees and minimum call fees. That means that the number of minutes you are buying is a maximum, not a guaranteed number.

Now let’s take a look at the postpaid service from FourVoice. The postpaid calling card operates on a pay as you go basis. You don’t buy your minutes up front. Instead, you sign-up with a credit card and declare a monthly limit for your card. In months that you make calls, you are billed the per minute rate appropriate for where you are calling from and where you are calling to. You also get charged a $1 billing fee. In months that you don’t make any calls, there’s no bill and no charges at all.

That makes FourVoice perfect for both casual calling card users. Don’t you wish you had the option of making really low rate phone long distance calls from hotels or other phones that you don’t own? You can with FourVoice. Just keep the access number and your pin number handy and use the service when you need to. In months that you never need to make a call, you don’t pay a cent.

But how about for regular use? How good are those rates? Just dial one of the many local access numbers available in the US and you’ll pay just 1.9 cents per minute to call other numbers in the US and Canada. That’s probably lower than your current landline long distance service. If no local access number is available or you just want to call the toll free access number, the rate is 4.9 cents per minute. That’s still a bargain.

But there are also excellent rates to other countries. Use the local access number and you can call London, Berlin, Paris, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, or Beijing for that same 1.9 cents per minute. Calls to Japan are 4.9 cents per minute. FourVoice estimates you can save up to 50% on international calls by using their service instead of your usual long distance calling service.

That’s great if you happen to be located in the US. But what happens when you are overseas? The rates are still excellent. There are local access numbers in 24 countries that will let you call other destinations worldwide for just pennies a minute.

So, the FourVoice postpaid calling card charges you for the calls you make and doesn’t require you to pay for minutes up front. There are no connection fees or hidden fees. You only pay a small $1 billing fee in months that you use the service. To top it off, the rates are as good as you’ll find with prepaid calling cards, especially when you factor in how many minutes you lose to the connection charges and service fees of prepaid calling cards.

Does this sound like a service that will save you money? If so, get more details, check rates and order your FourVoice postpaid international calling card quickly and easily online.

Plain Old Telephone Service For Business

What’s the modern way to get business phone service? How about POTS? That’s Plain Old Telephone Service.

Wait a second. Who wants something that’s considered “plain” and even “old”?

You do. That’s who. Why? Because POTS can be the highest quality most cost effective phone service you can get, that’s why. How can that be? Let’s see.

POTS is actually an industry term for analog telephone service over twisted pair copper wiring. It’s the direct descendent of the very telephone that Alexander Graham Bell invented. The Bell name lived on in the form of the Bell Telephone System, which had a monopoly on residential and business telephone service for about 100 years.

Why does that matter in this high technology age? Simply because 100 years is a lot of time to get it right. That’s what the telephone industry did. They got very, very efficient at building, installing and maintaining standardized telephony equipment to meet a strict set of specifications. By the time POTS technology was starting to feel competition, there were standard copper phone cables run to every home and business.

One advantage of analog phone service is that you have a dedicated pair of phone wires from your location right back to the telephone company’s central office. There’s no sharing of capacity the way there is on the Internet, for instance. Thus, phone calls have a predictable sound quality to them. As long as your lines aren’t defective, you have clear understandable voice conversations across town or across the country, even the world. Being a full duplex system, both parties can talk at the same time and be heard. You won’t cut off the start of the other conversation if you respond too quickly. Their voice won’t morph into the sound of Darth Vader or a deep sea diver because the transmission lines are congested.

You have your private space and that’s that. This is why the standard phone system is also called the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. There are actual physical switches in place to create a unique private circuit between you and anyone you care to speak with, regardless of where they are located.

That’s landline phone service for you. Cellular wireless phones may often be more convenient, but they depend on radio transmissions that can vary in strength from location to location. VoIP can sound as good as analog, but often doesn’t because the underlying data network is trying to send too many voice, data and video packets down the line at the same time. The Internet is a particular example of where you get strange and varying results when you use it to carry telephone conversations.

What type of companies does POTS work best for? Small and medium size businesses who need anywhere from a single phone line up to a dozen lines. You can order your lines one at a time as your business grows to need more. With more than 4 lines, you probably have a Key telephone system or small PBX telephone system to share the outside lines among all your employees.

At somewhere around 10 or 12 analog lines, it makes sense to move up to ISDN PRI, also called T1 PRI, digital telephone service. Strict telephone standards multiplex up to 23 phone lines plus Caller ID and switching signals onto a private T1 line. You get the same quality and features you enjoy with your analog service, but the pricing is often lower for ISDN PRI.

What phone service is best for your business? That depends on whether you are an independent sales professional, a high volume call center, a grocery store, an engineering firm or any of thousands of other businesses that depend on reliable telephone service. Our Telarus business consultants can help you get the most cost effective solution that gives you the quality, reliability and features you need. Get Lower Cost Business Phone Service Quotes today.

Clearest International Calls on Your Cell Phone

You want to make international phone calls but you’re not all that happy with VoIP and you’d really like to use your cell phone. Is there a way to get the clearest international calls from a mobile phone?

There sure is, especially if you are located in the U.S. or Canada. The secret is a special service that works with your cell phone but gives you cheap international calling with excellent voice quality.

The service is Tel3Advantage’s international long distance service. It allows you to call international from any phone at rates as low as 1 cent per minute. There’s a promotion going, so you’ll get special discounted rates for 30 days plus free minutes on sign-up. Even the regular rates are excellent. How about 1.7 cents to call China any day? How about making that call on your cell phone?

If you’ve ever picked up your home or office phone, or worse yet your cell phone, and dialed an international number, you know the feeling of shock and horror that comes when you open the next phone bill. Those services may be fine for local and state to state calls, but the international rates can be sky high. Phone companies like to keep that quiet, so you often don’t find out until you actually call overseas.

Tel3Advantage is a specialized telephone service called international dial-around. All they do is long distance. You use whatever phone you already have. Just dial one of their local access numbers or a special toll free number to access the service. Then place your international call. You’ll be talking for pennies a minute. In fact, it’s such a good deal that you may want to use it for your domestic long distance calls also.

But what about call quality? Many people have been driven to VoIP to avoid high international calling rates. But unless your broadband access is excellent and everything is running smoothly on the Internet, calls can easily become garbled or dropped completely. Plus most VoIP services want to give you local and long distance service as a bundle, something you may not even need. Don't forget that VoIP runs on DSL or Cable broadband. That ties you to your home or office landline when you’d really rather be mobile with your cell phone.

The Tel3Advantage system works with any phone, including your cell phone. It maintains the call quality that you already enjoy on local and long distance calls. What’s different is your ability to call around the world at bargain rates. There’s no big commitment to worry about, because there are no contracts or obligations with this service. You buy time and use it when you wish.

Here’s another bonus. Tel3Advantage offers a special “TEL3 Smartplug” software download for your cell phone. The Smartplug knows the access numbers, so you can simply call the number you want as if you are using conventional long distance service. The big difference is about an 80% savings on your calls.

If you have US or Canada phone service but have friends, family or business contacts in another country that you’d really like to call if it wasn’t so expensive, then learn more about Tel3Advantage international calling and enjoy new freedom in making phone calls anywhere around the world.

Talking Cheap on the QT

There's a new telephone service available that offers cheaper rates than you'd expect for both domestic local and long distance calls, and also international phone calls. No need to keep it quiet. There's plenty for everyone. If you want to save money on your residential telephone service and you haven't been thrilled at the deals from other VoIP services, you should have a look at QT Talk.

The QT Talk North America Plus service is unique in that you get unlimited calling to the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico plus, and here's the plus, a special low rate to one of a selected group of international destinations.

How cheap is cheap? Your introductory rate is just $12.95 per month for the first 3 months. Then just $19.95 a month after the 3 month promotion period. Plus, don't forget the international special offer. If you make calls to any of these destinations, you'll get special rates. Calls to Mexico are 6.9 cpm (cents per minute), Philippines 14.9 cpm, Pakistan 10.9 cpm, Bangladesh 7.9 cpm, India 2.9 cpm, and Vietnam 9.9 cpm. Rates to other destinations are surprisingly cheap, too.

Many features are included as part of the basic service, not add-ons like you may be used to with landline service. Among the features you'll enjoy free are speed dialing, call forwarding, simultaneous ring, call waiting, caller ID, call return caller ID block, do not disturb, last number redial, conference calls, online account management and the choice of keeping your current phone number or getting a new number for your QT Talk service.

Like all VoIP phone services, your call quality is highly dependent on the quality of your broadband Internet connection. If it is flaky, you can expect calls to break up and drop. If it is solid, you should experience good service on voice as well as data. To give you an idea of how well you are set up for VoIP, QT Talk offers a free VoIP Quality Test that you can run from your PC. It works like a speed test, only it rates your connection in terms of jitter and packet loss that would degrade a VoIP call.

You don't need a special phone to use this service. QT Talk will send you what's called an ATA or Analog Telephone Adaptor. This connects your regular landline telephone to your router or broadband modem so you can use your broadband Internet connection for both computer and phone service.

Sound interesting? If so, learn more, read the FAQs and terms of service, and order your QT Talk VoIP service quickly and conveniently online.

VoIP is For Smaller Companies Too

Enterprise VoIP solutions are generally seen as too sophisticated and way too expensive for small business. For the most part, that's true. In exceptional cases you may find that the feature rich IP PBX systems available today are a productivity booster for your sophisticated, if small, operation. For everyone else who just wants good voice quality telephone calls at a modest cost, SMB (Small and Medium Business) VoIP solutions may well fit the bill.

VoIP ranges from using your computer as a telephone all the way up to systems that are indistinguishable from standard network switched technologies. The home business user may be very happy with a VoIP telephone service that piggy-backs on the Cable or DSL broadband they already have for Internet access. These services don't require you to buy a special telephone. Instead, they provide an adaptor, sometimes called an ATA or Analog Telephone Adaptor, that works with the phone you have now. You simply plug your phone into the adaptor, connect the adaptor to your router or broadband modem, and you're set.

When you pick up the phone you get dial tone just like you have now. The phone rings just like it always has. The difference is that the bundled price of local and long distance service is often much less than you pay for traditional analog telephone service. Are you interested in VoIP as a replacement telephone service or for a second phone line? If so, you can use the service finder at Affordable VoIP to compare service offers and pick the one that's right for you.

Businesses that are large enough to have multiple employees and their own business address usually need a multi-line system so that more than one person can be on the phone at a time. Typical of these small businesses are real estate offices, insurance sales, warehouses, restaurants, retail stores and so on. What's also typical these days is that most businesses have a need for both telephone and Internet service. There are two good solutions that will give you both phone and Internet service with the voice quality and reliability you need.

The first solution is called Integrated T1. The integration comes from a combination of telephone and Internet on the same standard T1 line. Usually T1 is set up for either voice or data. But an integrated solution gives you both. A dynamic T1 line goes even further and automatically assigns any bandwidth not being used for telephone calls to broadband Internet. Even a heavily loaded Integrated T1 line with a dozen calls in progress will still give you Internet access similar to may DSL services. Being a combined service, you get a price break by ordering a single T1 line instead of two separate ones for telephone and Internet.

The second solution is call SIP Trunking. This is a fairly new service and works very much like a dynamic T1 line. Both voice and data packets travel on the same SIP Trunk from your business to your service provider, where they are separated into phone calls destined for the public telephone system and Internet access routed to the Internet backbones. The term SIP refers to Session Initiation Protocol, the term used for signaling in a VoIP telephone system.

Would an Integrated T1 or SIP Trunking solution be best for your company? The way to find out is to get pricing for each approach and compare cost and benefits. A simple online query will get the ball rolling and a friendly consultant will help you pick the right service for your business needs.

Who Needs A T1 Line at Home?

You've heard about how reliable T1 lines are and that they can be installed just about anywhere you can get telephone service. So, you may be thinking that sounds like a good solution for home broadband. In most cases, no. The price will make your eyes bug out. But for some people, a T1 line may be the only option that makes sense.

Residential broadband is designed to be as cheap as possible so it can be sold to as many people as possible. That's why you can pay under $20 a month for some DSL services, and typically around $30 to $40 a month for Cable broadband with 3 to 6 Mbps of bandwidth. If you live too far out of town for these options, satellite or wireless Internet will run you about twice that. Now compare that with T1 line prices. You'll pay at least 10x and perhaps 20x as much for T1 bandwidth at 1.5 Mbps. Still think that's what you want?

What makes T1 so pricey and why would anyone pay such a premium? T1 is a technology developed by the phone companies for their own use and now sold to business locations. It was built to be extremely reliable and delivers a constant 1.5 Mbps in both the upload and download directions. Sure, anyone can cut a telco cable with a backhoe at the most unexpected times. But being a tariffed telecommunications service, often with a service level agreement, T1 service gets top priority if and when outages occur.

Contrast that to consumer grade services. These are not regulated telecom services but "information services." That means they are offered as-is with no guarantee of bandwidth or availability. The providers will certainly make an effort to provide decent service levels, at least to keep users from getting so frustrated they sign up for a competing service. But there should be no illusion that home broadband is intended for casual and not serious business use.

The other reason that residential broadband services are cheap is that they are oversubscribed. The providers know that not everyone is online every minute of the day. So they can share their backbone bandwidth among dozens or hundreds of users. How much bandwidth you actually get will fluctuate during the day and depends on who else is sharing the service and whether they are casually browsing the Web or downloading videos.

T1 bandwidth is not shared. You sign a lease for 1.5 Mbps and that's what you get. Characteristics such as latency, jitter and packet loss also tend to be better for T1 service versus DSL or Cable broadband.

So who needs a T1 line at home? Usually it's someone running a serious business or professional application who needs the dependability and consistent performance they get from T1 service. One example is someone who trades stocks or options from their home office. Another might be a physician who reads medical images. Business executives who want their home office to be a mirror of their company office may also opt for T1 service.

These professional users tend to have needs that justify the higher monthly cost with a need for high grade service. Sometimes cheaper actually costs you more. Consider the stock trader who's line keeps dropping in the middle of a trading session. Or the Web developer who can't update sites or who's server becomes unavailable. It's possible to lose more money in one day than you'll save all month with cheap broadband.

If you have a serious need for professional broadband service at home and can afford at least several hundred dollars per month for bandwidth, a T1 line might be right for you. On the other hand, if your needs are less demanding and you want the lowest price possible, then check into Cable and DSL broadband options. For mobile operation, 3G wireless is hard to for cost and availability.

DS1 Telephone Service Lowers Business Phone Bills

DS1 is the business telephone line service you've probably never heard of, but one that can potentially save you a small fortune. So if it's so good, why haven't you heard of it yet?

Actually, you have heard of DS1 in its more popular name: T1. That's right. DS1 and T1 refer to the same thing. They are a digital telecommunications line standard that replaces analog phone service. They are also widely popular for point to point data links and dedicated connections to the Internet. But why the two names?

There is a hair of difference between DS1 and T1. DS1 stands for Digital Signal 1. It's the format of the bit pattern that is used in TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) digital trunk lines. T-1 refers to the physical line itself, a 4-wire connection made up of two copper twisted pairs. T-1 or T1 carries the DS-1 or DS1 signal that actually conveys the information. These standards can be written with or without the dashes in-between the letter and the number.

Let's take a closer look at what DS1 can be used for. As a telephone service, DS1 offers 24 independent phone lines in a single digital trunk. Each of those phone lines is carried in a channel, also known as a DS0. The DS0 channel is 8 bits wide sampled at 8 KHz for a data rate of 64 Kbps. That's enough to provide "toll quality" telephone calls for local or long distance service.

Toll quality is the gold standard by which other services, such as VoIP or cellular phone, can be judged. The voice quality of cell phone calls doesn't really come close. VoIP can sound nearly indistinguishable from TDM toll quality if properly engineered. But on many consumer grade Internet connections, VoIP voice quality can easily degrade if the broadband service is highly congested.

The voice quality of DS1 service is locked-in by careful synchronization of the DS1 channels on the line. Unless the line is cut or something in the phone system fails, every call should sound as good as every other call as far as the line is concerned. That's one reason why DS1 (T1) service is so popular for business. You know it will be reliable day after day and is unaffected by anything going on with the Internet.

So how does DS1 save businesses money? Remember that the purpose of the digital trunking standards is to consolidate up to 24 separate analog phone lines on a single digital line. There is an efficiency to this, an economy of scale if you will, that makes T1 lines with DS1 service less expensive once you have more than 8 to 12 outgoing lines installed. At that point you no doubt have a PBX telephone system managing your lines. By plugging a T1 line into an interface card in your PBX instead of a dozen separate analog lines, you can get the same level of telephone service but with a lower monthly phone bill.

Is your business in a position to save considerable money on your telecommunications expenses? Find out how much DS1 telephone service can lower your telephone bill.

Easy Convergence for Small Businesses

Convergence, the merging of voice and data networks, is a technology being pursued by large and medium size companies as a cost savings initiative. The idea is that operating two separate networks for telephone and Internet costs more than a combined or converged network.

The advantages of converged networks are clearer for new installations than retrofits. Right now, the solutions seem also to be targeted at enterprises with hundreds to thousands of employees. But what about smaller professional offices, retailers, manufacturers? Is there a way for them to save money with voice and data convergence?

Actually, there is a solution that is works very well for smaller companies that use half a dozen to a dozen outside telephone lines and broadband Internet access. That's the right scale for thousands of different types of businesses from auto dealerships to real estate offices to plastics factories. It's called Integrated T1 service.

You may not of heard of this service, even if you know about T1 lines. Companies that are heavy users of local and long distance telephone services know that T1 digital trunk lines can save money by replacing many individual analog business phone lines. T1 PRI service offers the perfect match for most business PBX telephone systems. T1 Dedicated Internet service offers superior stability and reliability compared to shared solutions such as DSL and Cable broadband. But what's Integrated T1?

The Integrated term means much the same as converged. T1 Integrated service integrates or combines voice and data service on a single T1 line. While many medium size companies simply one or more T1 lines for their telephone system and a separate T1 service for broadband Internet access, that solution gets a bit pricey for smaller companies. It may also result in telephone line capacity that is never really used. By combining telephone and Internet on the same line, you get a service and price that are optimized for smaller operations.

With Integrated T1 service, there is a single T1 line that runs between your company and your service provider. There's a device called an IAD or Integrated Access Device at each end that provides the interface. The IAD connects to your phone system to provide 3, 6, or up to 12 outside lines. It also connects to your router to provide the broadband Internet connection.

So how can one line do double duty? The IAD manages the bandwidth of the line. Many times the IAD converts both voice and data to a packet protocol with Quality of Service controls. Telephone calls have priority so that voice quality is always maintained. Dynamic bandwidth management uses whatever line capacity that is not currently dedicated to phone conversations for Internet access. By limiting the number of phone lines supported to a maximum of 12, you are assured of always having adequate Internet bandwidth.

There are no special equipment requirements for customers of Integrated T1 line service. The provider supplies and manages the IAD that is located on your premises. You keep the telephone and network equipment you now have but enjoy the cost savings and high reliability of this professional telecom service.

Can you benefit from Integrated T1 or other competitive wireline services for your company? Find out quickly and easily with our T1 service pricing and availability tool at T1 Rex.

VoIP Without The Internet

VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol telephony made its name as an Internet based telephone service alternative. The idea was to use the broadband connection that most residential and business users had in place to also connect with their phone service provider. Competitive service providers could avoid paying the local telephone companies to lease the existing copper phone lines and offer a better bundled price to customers. In theory, it should be easy for the gigantic Internet pipe to transport low bandwidth voice streams.

Well, that's the theory. In practice, that big pipe isn't always so infinitely large. Like the super highway it emulates, Internet paths can become congested with packets just as easily as highways become congested with cars. Bandwidth congestion, transmission delays called latency, and dropped packets can easily tear up a phone conversation or any other type of real time data stream.

Most of the problem is in the infamous first-mile. That's the connection between your location and your service provider's point of presence or POP. Shared bandwidth arrangements such as DSL and Cable broadband make no guarantees as to availability or quality of service. One minute everything is working great. Next minute the line goes dead. Or at least the conversation gets garbled from time to time.

Consumers might put up with this level of performance if they can save enough money on their phone bill. But businesses really can't afford the customer annoyance and lost connections during important conversations. Having experienced problems with VoIP installations or hearing horror stories has convinced many businesses to hunker down and avoid the entire network voice issue. Others have worked out arrangements so that they can have the best of both worlds. They get the reliability and voice quality they've come to expect from the public switched telephone network. Plus the cost savings and added features that come from a converged voice and data network.

How do the successful businesses do it? For many the secret is as simple as avoiding the Internet for anything but Web and email access or electronic data interchange. But that doesn't have to mean maintaining a bank of analog phone lines and an ancient telephone system. There are at least two ways to have your VoIP without having to eat the problems too.

The first approach is to go with a hybrid PBX phone system. Within your plant, the phones and switch are IP based. SIP telephones and an IP PBX system allow you to use a single Ethernet LAN to connect both computers and phones. Yes, you'll need to carefully engineer your network to make sure that voice packets move unrestricted. But that may well be worth the effort to eliminate the separate telephone network and all its maintenance expense. With the hybrid approach, IP stops at the IP PBX. Plug-in interface cards for T1 PRI trunks or simple analog lines bring in conventional telephone service.

The second approach is to employ SIP trunking to connect your IP PBX to your competitive phone service provider. SIP trunking is a private line arrangement that maintains the integrity of the VoIP packets all the way from telephone set to service provider. The SIP trunk is usually shared with Internet data coming from the service provider to your network. However, your voice packets never traverse the public Internet. They stay on the SIP trunk until they are terminated to the public telephone network by your provider. You are never in contention with other users for the bandwidth that transmits your voice and data packets.

Both of these approaches give you control over Quality of Service for your telephone calls. Either you connect to the public phone network at your company location. Or your send your call streams to your service provider over a carefully engineered private line. It avoids the contention and variability that are inherent to that public facility that is the Internet.

Are you interested in improving your business telephone system but concerned about maintaining quality and reliability. Let our expert consultants recommend alternative approaches that address those concerns but also offer capital and operational cost savings. Tell us about your needs at EnterpriseVoIP.com.

T-1 Bandwidth Suits the SMB

The SMB or Small to Medium size Business is no longer a stand-alone entity, even when independently owned and operated. Business operations from small insurance offices to the ubiquitous QSRs or Quick Service Restaurants have become either Internet enabled or Internet dependent. Why? Because the benefit to cost ratio is so favorable.

The most popular digital communication connection for SMBs is the T1 line. It is a business-grade regulated telecommunication service that has dropped in price over the past few years due to increasing demand and fierce competition among providers. In some cases, you'll pay less than half for T1 service than you did five years ago. How many of your other business expenses have done that?

T-1 bandwidth is a solid 1.5 Mbps in both directions, upload and download. It is a precisely synchronized transmission protocol that can be thought of like a water pipe. Regardless of how much is currently being used, a set capacity is always available. If you need more, it's as simple as bonding in additional T1 lines to multiply your available bandwidth by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more times.

So how do small and medium businesses employ their T-1 bandwidth? In addition to the obvious applications such as email and Web browsing, many businesses use their T1 lines to order supplies, upload accounting reports to a main office, check inventory at remote warehouses, monitor security cameras and enable telecommuting by home workers or employees on the road.

Many companies have become completely or partially Internet based operations. E-commerce is a typical application, so that customers can order from an online catalog anytime, even when stores are closed. Sales organizations have the ability to "carry the business" to a customer's office. Product information can be displayed at the customer's desk using laptop computers equipped with cellular broadband cards. Stock can be checked and orders entered right on the spot.

Other companies have realized cost savings by integrating their telephone and Internet data through a single T1 line. There are a couple of ways to do this. Integrated T1 Service is a specialized product that allocates T-1 bandwidth between voice and data. Any bandwidth not needed for telephone calls is automatically available for Internet use. One nice feature of Integrated T1 Service is that it works with your current telephone system, even if it is a key telephone system with a half-dozen analog phone lines.

Another approach is to use a single T1 dedicated Internet data line to support a VoIP telephone system and multiple Internet users. The VoIP supplier connects to the in-house iPBX system via the Internet. IP security cameras can be also be accessed via the Internet from managers' homes or remote security services.

Where data security is concerned, SMBs can still use the Internet as a convenient WAN or Wide Area Network. Information is protected from prying eyes by encrypting it during transmission. This approach is often referred to as a VPN or Virtual Private Network.

Another use for T1 lines is for private point to point connections. Very typical is a business with multiple locations that uses P2P T1 lines to interconnect all its telephones and/or send data directly between locations.

Is your small to medium size business in need of upgraded broadband service? Would you like to see if you can get better pricing on the T1 service you are already using? If so, you can find out in less than a minute what services and prices are available for your business location using our T1 Rex automated online T-1 bandwidth search.