Is VOIP reliable enough for the business world?

[TheoPetro]

I know next to nothing about this tech and was curious about for our offices.

We have a 3mb/? connection currently if that makes a difference. Only need ~3-4 lines right now but may need more in the future.

Who are the best providers and how reliable are they?

Is this a reliable cost effective solution yet, or is it still too new?

If you guys could point me in the direction to research it I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[erwos]

VOIP? I have a VOIP phone right next to me on my desk here at work. We're a Fortune 500 company. It works just like any other phone. It looks like Avaya gear, for what that's worth, but I don't know the backend. I doubt you'll have a problem with any of the major providers.

Now whether your _connection_ is reliable enough is a different story. I'd be weary of implementing VOIP on any line without a service level agreement unless you can tolerate outages at the worst possible times (that's when it'll happen!).

 

[DeeKnow]

If you get something professional like a Cisco, I bet you cannot tell from voice quality that you're using VOIP. add in the rock bottom cost, and the hundreds of additional features, and its a no brainer if you have good and reliable bandwidth

however, like the previous poster said, do not rely on VOIP as your only telephone option. that could be risky

 

[sciencewhiz]

We switched to VOIP about a year ago, a Fortune 100 company. It also uses Avaya phones.

 

[almach1]

what matters more i think is your internet connectivity. also weather or not it's hosted or not.

 

[DeeKnow]

I witched to voip about a year ago... since we live overseas and I travel a lot for work, we used to average almost $ 200 -300 a month in telephone bills. Last few months ?? LOL i havent gone over $50.

check out voipbuster.com for instance

 

[Specop 007]

Its quickly getting there. It was shaky at first but at this point I have complete confidence in it.
A VOIP phone is treated just like any other, if you have an outage the providers have a truckload of FCC paperwork to do.