New hosted VOIP supplier - can't we keep existing phones ?

[Yolande Peach]

I'm looking to change hosted VOIP suppliers. We have a clash between our VOIP suppliers and IT contractors who have to come in and fix what the VOIP suppliers have 'allegedly' broken every visit - at a cost of £1,000 per time. Neither will talk to each other. We don't want them all in the same basket however.

BUT is it true that the SIP phones need to be configured at base - so we couldn't keep our existing perfectly good Polycom IP 3335. Can't ET phone home and be configured remotely?

We've been offered £15 per user all in, phones, setup and calls - minimum 3 year contract. But as said on this forum before I think over the three years that's probably expensive but luring because of the no upfront hardware costs.

More questions:

Do people change suppliers about 3 years or stay with their existing. We keep suffering from poor quality calls and probably move every 3 years through exasperation and lack of solution. Is that because we have 11 users on a broadband line of 8-10meg download and 1 meg upload and that would all be sorted if we went fibre?

Also, does everyone renegotiate their call prices annually?

All thoughts appreciated.
kind regards

 

[TPTele]

Hello.
Sorry to read about your issues. I cannot think why your VoIP supplier should be breaking your IT system but lets talk about the future.

As long as your old phones are not locked to your present supplier you should be able to use them.

Call quality vs broadband speed; your 1 meg upload speed might prove to be an issue if lots of people are on the phone at once but otherwise should be fine.

Cost and contract length; £15 per user is not cheap but it will depend on how many calls you normally make. Any good supplier with carry out a bill review to give you a like for like comparison. Many "all inclusive" can suddenly become very expensive when you look at what you actually use. Most VoIP suppliers will do shorter contract lengths from as little as one month rolling but if they are including free hardware then they will need to tie you in to cover their costs.

If you would like to discuss your specific requirements then give me a call on 033 33 58 33 33.

Stuart.

 

[cjd]

First off SIP phones can be moved between telcos extremely easily. The process take a couple of minutes - you just need an account with a VoIP company, they will give you a username and password for the phone, you enter those and it works.

But if you want to keep your existing telephone numbers you need to port them, that takes a couple of weeks.

There's absolutely no need to sign rediculous long term contracts anymore. There are loads of excellent VoIP telcos now that operate on no contract terms. Because it's so easy to change supplier, if you're a no contract company - like us - you have to be good or people just go.

The only issue is that phone, do you really mean 3335 not 335? I'm not an expert on Polycoms but some of my guys should be able to advise - just need to check that that phone isn't locked into a proprietary platform. A trick these long term contract theives use.

Call 020 7043 5555

 

[James Ormerod]

All that's involved is a simple user/password & sip server change in the phone so long as it's not locked down to your provider but that's pretty unusual.

We charge £4.99 per month per handset and also give you a login to a fully featured VoIP management portal.

Happy to give you a free account and work with you to try and change a handset over.

Regards,

James
Vispa

 

[Krystsina]

Hi! We've just created a list of top VoIP providers for small UK based businesses, maybe it will be helpful for you to see what options are at the market. There are definitely some cheaper options than you've been offered - for example, Yay.com offers some plans starting from £2,99 per user per month. They also don't have a "minimum contract" requirement + they provide a 30-day free trial with 3 users included. It is just one of the possible options you can consider.