Hello from Voipfone.

[cjd]

I'm the CEO/MD of an Internet Telephone company called Voipfone to be found at.

www.voipfone.co.uk.

I spent about 20 years in BT finishing with running their Internet businesses. It was fairly obvious that traditional telephone companies were going to be severely challenged by the Internet and I became very interested in how I could get involved in creating the new era.

I'm here because my company specialises in providing telephone services to small business - a sector that traditional telecoms provider have either ignored or horribly exploited.

With VoIP technology it is possible to bring the features and functionality that large corporates have always enjoyed - such as switchboards, voicemail, call queuing, call tranfer etc - to very small business for tiny prices, often pennies, often free.

I still find it amazing that my wife, who runs a small education consultancy, can work from home using a virtual PBX which has extensions in remote locations and can call them all for free - no matter where in the world they are. Our son is at University and is extension 200 off her PBX - they can talk anytime they like for free.

Oops getting carried away; it's good to be here :)

If you're interested, we were in the Guardian last week - a nice little article about having a vrtual telephone number - looking like you're based in one place but being somewhere else entirely!

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0,,1606956,00.html

[Jayne]

Hi,

Welcome to the forum :D

Jayne

[Alpha]

Hi CJD (Mad cow??) and welcome to the forums.

Look forward to seeing your contributions to the forums :)

[JustOneUK]

your advert has been rejected, please check your PM.

James

[cjd]

The advert was rejected because my telephone number is Central London (0207) while my location is Brighton - that's exactly what Voice over Internet does - read the article :wink:

I suppose I could give myself an 01273 number (Brighton) :twisted:

[Magsite]

hi

Welcome

Lisa

[JustOneUK]

The advert was rejected because my telephone number is Central London (0207) while my location is Brighton - that's exactly what Voice over Internet does - read the article :wink:

I suppose I could give myself an 01273 number (Brighton) :twisted:

Contact Details :

Voipfone
Sovereign House
227 Marsh Wall
London
E14 9SD
United Kingdom

I read the whole site.
Also the email address you supplied is not recognised. Perhaps there is a problem there.
Where you reside is of no consequence. It is a local directory, you can submit to your local area and the 5 nearest. For a London based business that would give you 6 Boroughs or a catchment area of 1-2 million people.

Feel free to resubmit your advert.
Best Regards
James

[cjd]

[quote=cjd]
Feel free to resubmit your advert.
Best Regards
James

It's ok James, it can't work for us.

The address you've pulled off the site is the Data Cente where our network lives - it's important for our services to have direct and high quality links into the Internet 'backbone' around London.

Your site works on a local basis but we are a company with no local presence; our main telephone number is 0207 but no-one is based there; in fact several of our contractors have an 0207 number but are not even in the UK!

Telephone numbers were originally based on geographic location because the technology (it was quite literally clockwork) forced that arrangement.

With the internet, geographic location is irrelevant. I can take my telphone to Afghanistan, plug it into an internet connection and someone dialling 020 7043 5555 will still make my phone ring.

I wish you luck with your business - it seems like a good idea.

[JustOneUK]

no problem, hopefully you will submit your site to our NON local version which is set to open Jan '06.

James

[duenna]

Hello CJD

Is the stuff you are doing no different to skype? I can get a New York number and be based in Moscow. Or be sat in a wi fi zone in Japan on my laptop and have someone call my 0207 number.

Whats unique about what you do?

Welcome by the way!

David

[cjd]

Hello CJD

Is the stuff you are doing no different to skype?
Whats unique about what you do?

Welcome by the way!

David

Thanks for the welcome.

We are very different to Skype (in both technology and business models) but the principle of using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to do what we do is the same.

Skype is a proprietary computer application, Voipfone is a standards based telephone service for small business (and individuals).

Everybody and his dog is making 'skype-alike' products, microsoft, yahoo, AOHell, google etc; there's no room there for the small guy.

If you've ever worked in a big company you've got used to having your own incoming number on your desk phone, being able to accept several telephone calls at once, transfer call, hold call conferences, dial other internal extensions etc etc.

This was all done by a very expensive PBX (a switch) managed by a Telecom Manager and cost tens of thousands of pounds to buy and many hundreds a month to run.

Voipfone has built one of these switches and bolted it onto the Internet. So now very small businesses can have what big businesses have always had - and a lot more - but for only a few pounds. For example.

A small company with say 3 people in the office and 2 home workers could have five telephone extensions and one main number for the business. Each extension costs 99p per month. All calls between them are free. So the home workers can be anywhere in the world, dial the extension number and call for free. They can also each have their own direct dial in number - either free or £1.99 if you want them to look as though they're in a particular town or city.

People don't often understand that you can call any telephone number on any telephone system in the world. Calls to Voipfone (or other voip services are free) and calls to ordinary telephones cost about 1p per minute to most of the Western world.

You can do other stuff too like put a call queuing system in front of the number - you know "you are 2nd in the queue and will be answered in approximately 2 minutes - your call couldn't mean less to us - please hang around while I finish my coffee" etc That cost £1.99 :-)

Everything we do is web based, so it's self-service and instant - there's no contracts if it doesn't suit you just stop using it.

There's a lot more to it than this; the best thing to do is read the web site or sign up and play around - it's free.

Or read the FAQs
https://www.voipfone.co.uk/FAQ.php

[duenna]

Sounds brilliant CJD!

Really does. I will be visiting your website!


again

[FDB]

Hmm...does sound good. I'll be going over to have a look tonight. IF I'm already signed up to a company that does cheap calls already will it affect that? So like the Cauldwell company (Home call is it?) or Euphony. I think it's sounds good and a number of my researchers would prefer to work from home but I know they've already signed up to variuos deals with variuos companies like the ones mentioned above.
Cheers CJD! :?

[cjd]

The issue of moving from your current supplier is obviously a big one. Generally my advice is don't - at least not until you are comfortable with our services.

It take most people some time to really understand what is possible with VoIP - I own the company and it still amazes and confuses me!

What most people do is take some of the free services and play with them. You can sign up for free and download our free software telephone onto your PC and start making calls. We give you 5 free minutes of calls to any landline and 2 SMSs. If your colleagues do the same they can call each other indefinately for nothing. We also give you a free telephone number so anybody can dial you too.

After that you could buy some calling credit and use it like a normal phone and maybe buy a couple of extensions for your PBX (99 pence/month). etc etc

The point is there's no risk because it costs almost nothing and you can cancel anytime you like - there's no contracts. We find that most people go down this suck it and see route.

[FDB]

Hmm. I may get back to you with some more Q's later on. Cheers CJD