RH wrote:[color=blue]
> <Simon.Astbury@googlemail.com> wrote in message
> news:1177340836.707087.144800@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...[color=green]
>> Does anyone have any stats on how much money they have saved by
>> installing skype for a small or medium sized companies?
>> There was an article in the guardian
>> [url]http://observer.guardian.co.uk/cash/story/0,,2062580,00.html[/url]
>> which stated that a home user had saved 60% - "We are probably making
>> a 60 per cent saving on total phone bills,'
>> This is a substantial saving and i am interested in knowing if anyone
>> has had the same saving for businesses?[/color]
>
> I would not basis cheaper calls for business based on skype, for the
> following reasons
>
> 1- While costs are lower than BT, they are not super cheap, you may get
> better with a least cost routing supplier on existing system.
> 2- if your looking at a VOIP route there are others that are cheaper
> 3- With Skype you are looking at softphone use probably, users will get fed
> up of taking calls on one phone and making on different system
> 4- Its locked into one provider
>
> I like skype and it maybe useful for smaller one man band companies on the
> move, but it is limited, I do think having skype is usefull for incoming
> skype calls
> as a marketing "call us free" and showing you forward thinking, but not
> great as a means to save money.
>
> If you are looking VOIP for a business, a far better system would be to use
> SIP based providers and use an IP PBX, This would allow you to
> use a range of providers, and select via rules which one to use destination
> X. software like TrixBox, an example product (free and open source) allow
> much poweful business uses as well, such as CRM with click to call
> functions, automatic recording, voicemail and lots more. If you buy hardware
> you can connect your existing phone lines in,.
>
> I use trixbox myself as homeuser, I have I have a VOIP number in, with one
> provider, and use several other providers to make calls to europe at dirt
> cheapprices.
> If your looking for business voip probably the cheapest is voicetrading.com.
>
> The downside to VOIP is while you may save in call costs you may need to
> invest in better Internet connection to have lots of users using VOIP at
> once
>
>
>[/color]

I would have to agree that Skype is probably not best for business.
ITSP's generally give you a better deal on call costs and ways to make
calls such as using VoIP hardware. I personally would recommend SNOM
phones to make calls using an ITSP as they offer great sound quality.
They work just like a normal phone, but router calls over the internet.

Many ITSP's also offer additional features for business, such as Virtual
PBX which allow you to transfer calls between extensions etc etc.

Also if you currently have numbers that people know, you can also port
these numbers to the ITSP.

Depending on your broadband speeds and the amount of traffic that goes
across this it can be an issue. If you have a quick connection, you can
normally make more than one call at at time. Remember its the upload
speed that you need to look at when using ADSL, as this is slower that
the download speed. It is also often wise to enable QoS on your router
to give hight priority to your voice traffic. Also make the right choice
of ISP, business packages normally offer better ratios to connection
than standard packages. Many also offer traffic shaping that can also
help the call quality (they give real-time protocols priority over
non-real-time such as browsing the web).

Also BT's 21C network is using SIP protocol, the same as many ITSP
(Correct me if I'm wrong) so it is real the way forward.

-----------------------
Ross Beer
VoiceHost Support
[url]www.voicehost.co.uk[/url]