Flat Rate vs Pay As You Go Conference Calling

You’ve already discovered that telephone conference calls and Web conferencing can save your company hundreds or even thousands of dollars per meeting. So why quibble about the small costs involved? For one thing, a penny saved is worth more than a penny earned. For another, the better the deal on conference calling, the more you can use the service to improve productivity.

Let’s take a look at how much you can get for what you pay from AccuConference, a leader in the teleconferencing services field. AccuConference offers both flat rate and pay as you go conference calls.

The Flat-Rate option is perfect for anyone who wants to have regular meetings, even on a daily basis. The beauty of flat-rate is that you don’t have to sit looking at the clock, worrying about what this is costing when somebody takes too long to get to the point. Flat rate is what it says. You pay a single monthly fee that determines how many participants you can include in your conference call. Participants call a 404 Atlanta dial-in number and pay the cost of their long distance calls. You can keep the call going as long as necessary, although people will tend to fade after an hour or two. After 10 hours, the system will mercifully cut you off and you’ll have to start another conference.

How much is this flat rate? It starts at $14.95 per month for up to 5 lines on the conference. Of course, people may be using speakerphones at the other end of those line to include an entire conference room group in the conversation. Five lines is plenty for most working groups and project teams. But what if your company wants to host training calls for employees or affiliates? You’ll need more lines. You can get up to 50 lines for $199 a month and have a conference every day if you have that much material to share.

AccuConference pay as you go conference calls are also toll-free conference calls. There are no set up fees, no monthly requirements or contracts of any type. You simply pay for what you use. What you pay is a small per minute charge, typically 7.9 cents per minute for each participant. Participants call a toll free number and you pay for the cost of the calls.

How about international participants? They can call-in toll free like domestic US callers. The cost for each participant depends on where they are calling from. For instance, callers in Canada cost 9.9 cents a minute instead of 7.9 cents a minute for US participants. Calls from Australia are 12.9 cents a minute, UK participants are also 12.9 cents a minute, while calls from Mexico are 32.9 cents a minute. Most of Europe is under 20 cents per minute.

Now, think about how much it costs to travel to wherever you would have a meeting and then decide how often that cost is worth it. In between visits, you’ll be surprised on how well connected you can be with low cost flat rate or pay as you go conference calls.

Vanity, Thy Number is Toll Free

Is there a place for vanity in business? You bet there is. Any technology that gives you an edge over your competition is worth considering, including a vanity toll free number.

So, what's the difference between a vanity number and any other toll free number? The answer lies in the relationship between letters and numbers on the standard telephone keypad. It's been long standardized that the 1 button does not have any letters printed on it. But 2 has a, b, and c. The number 3 button has d, e, and f. And so on up through 9.

One benefit of associating letters with numbers is that you can now dial phone numbers by spelling out words. For instance, someone selling boats might want the number 1-877-48-BOATS which is the same as 1-877-482-6287. A bridal shop might find that customers could more easily remember 1-866-59-BRIDE than 1-866-592-7433. That's especially true if they saw the number on a billboard or heard it on the radio or TV and didn't have a way to write down the number at the time.

1-877-48-BOATS, 1-866-59-BRIDE, and others such as 1-877-51-BOOKS, 1-866-96-CONDO, 1-866-531-DEBT, 1-866-760-FOOD, 1-877-967-TECH, 1-877-80-TOOTH, 1-866-50-YOUTH and 1-866-546-YOGA are all examples of vanity toll free numbers. They are also all available as of this writing for the small sum of $15 to reserve any of them for your exclusive use.

Really? It costs only $15 to get a memorable toll free number for business, organizational, or personal use? It does if you order from the right place.

A leader in toll free services, including toll free numbers is Kall8. What makes them a leader, perhaps THE leader in this field, is that you get an impressive array of features, a huge collection of numbers already set up and ready to order, and dirt cheap pricing. For vanity numbers, the pricing is $15 to order the number, $15 a month to maintain exclusive use of that number, and 6.9 cents per minute for calls that come in on that vanity number.

Can you think of any other business service that can help you get and keep customers at such a small cost? If not, don't wait a second longer. Pick your toll free vanity number from a list of dozens and dozens currently available and order quickly and easily online. All it takes is a credit card a few minutes and you'll be ready to go.

Better hurry. Now that I've mentioned these particular numbers, other readers might decide to grab them for their own businesses. You likely won't be too disappointed, however. There are so many good numbers available that you're likely to find at least one that exactly fits your needs. You should also know that while most vanity numbers are priced at $15 each, there are some that are so valuable, so easy to remember and so in demand that they command higher prices, say $20, $25 or $30 each. Even so, that's pretty cheap for something that can help you increase business just by being easier to remember than your competition's numerical phone number.

If you want to get started with toll free numbers even cheaper, there are many that are not claimed to be vanity numbers available for $2 each and $2 per month plus the cost of calls. Now, a clever person could go through the available numbers substituting letters for numbers and see what can be spelled out. You never know. You could wind up with the cheapest vanity toll free numbe of all.

PRI vs POTS Telephone Service

Business telephone systems range in size from single line desk phones through enterprise telephony with hundreds or thousands of handsets. Chances are that your business needs are somewhere in the middle. But where? What is the right service for you?

The most basic and traditional phone service is called POTS or Plain Old Telephone Service. Chances are that you won't see it advertised that way. Instead it will be called business line or dial tone service. What you get is an analog connection to the nearest telephone company Central Office or CO. Any conventional telephone will plug into the RJ11 jack on the wall and give you dial-tone when you lift the handset. You can expand the number of rooms with phones by paralleling twisted pair wiring to other phone jacks. But you still only have one line and, if it is in use, no one else can make or receive calls.

Basic POTS is local phone service. Long distance service is either bundled for a single price or assigned to a competitive long distance carrier that offers lower per-minute rates on separate billing. Caller ID is an add-on service that is multiplexed on the same phone line and displays the caller's phone number and other information on phones with the necessary display, or a separate Caller ID unit. Toll free service can be added to forward incoming calls from a toll-free number to your phone line.

A logical upgrade from POTS is to add a separate identical line service and use a two-line business phone. These are commonly sold in office supply stores and can work well for small offices. Such phones are entry level Key Telephone Systems. What distinguishes a key system is that there are buttons or "keys" on each telephone to select the desired phone line. These buttons flash to indicate the line is ringing with an incoming call or light steadily to show that line is in use. Larger key systems can handle a half-dozen separate phone lines.

Businesses with 6 or more outside lines are likely to switch to a PBX or Private Branch eXchange phone system. Like the name implies, this is a mini telephone company office on your premises. Once giant racks full of equipment, the modern PBX may be just a small box that sits on a shelf in the telephone closet. PBX systems work differently from Key systems. The PBX manages all the phone lines for incoming and outgoing calls. It also interconnects all the telephone handsets so you can dial from phone to phone inside your building without incurring any telephone line charges. When you need to make an outside call, the PBX system will assign you the next available line. You don't really need to know which one it is, they all work the same. Callers can directly dial a number for your phone, called DID, or reach an automated system where they can enter your extension number. The PBX will then ring your phone.

Up till now the phone lines we've been discussing for all of these different telephone systems are individual analog POTS lines. You pay for each one separately and the total cost is generally the cost per line time the number of lines. Once you need 8 to 12 lines or more, it usually makes economic sense to switch to digital trunk rather than use multiple analog lines.

The digital trunk, called a T1 voice line, converts up to 24 separate phone lines into a single digital connection between you and your phone service provider. The most popular variety of T1 service is called T1 PRI or Primary Rate Interface. It is also known as ISDN PRI for Integrated Services Digital Network. The difference between a T1 PRI line and a T1 voice line is that the PRI protocol establishes one channel of the 24 as a switching and data channel. This makes calling faster and allows you to have Caller ID for the other 1-23 channels or 1 to 23 outside phone lines.

If your phone system has grown over the years to a dozen or two dozen analog phone lines, it's time you got a competitive quote for T1 PRI lines service. Connecting PRI to your PBX system usually involves plugging-in a special interface card if your system doesn't already have one. Many new PBX systems come with this connection feature.