VoIP Advantage - News & Blog

10 ways to save money by using VoIP

2009-10-27T09:01:00.001Z

1) Free calls - You can call colleagues, clients, suppliers and well, anyone in the world that has VoIP, for free from your VoIP service.

2) Cheap calls - If you can’t call VoIP to VoIP, then you can make extremely low-cost calls to users without VoIP. There is a charge, but it’s much cheaper than using a regular telephone or a mobile phone to contact them.

3) Be local to your customers - You can make calling your company cheaper for your clients and customers by giving them a local number to call you. So whether you have customers in Germany and Argentina and your office is in Brighton, it doesn’t matter, they call a number that’s local to them and the call comes straight into your VoIP.

4) Answers your calls globally – With VoIP, you can answer your calls anywhere in the world. Your customers dial the same number, but you can choose to answer from anywhere in the world. So if you take your laptop with you on business trips, your clients can still stay in touch. Cutting down on international call charges makes good financial sense for everyone.

5) Always answer your calls - It really doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you can listen to your messages on the completely free VoIP answer machine, or have them emailed to you wherever you are.

6) Freedom to roam – Don't be trapped at your desk, if you need to be out and about, set your VoIP number to forward your calls through to your mobile and you won’t miss out on that important call.

7) The more the merrier – Don’t be the only one in your organisation to benefit from the wonders of VoIP. Voice Over Internet Protocol can save the entire organisation money when it’s rolled out throughout your company.

8) Team work - VoIP users can make conference calls with other VoIP users for free. This means that if your colleagues are spread throughout the world, you can still have a free phone conversation without incurring high charges.

9) Mobile without the bill – If your mobile phone can run VoIP software (such as Fring), then you can make free calls from your smart phone, which can cut your mobile bills considerably.

10) Work from home – VoIP provides the flexibility to make the most of work-from-home opportunities. Internet telephony allows businesses of all sizes to reduce the capital costs of running a team of telesales or telemarketing operatives, while also enabling working from the comfort of their own homes.

Softphones for use on Ubuntu 9.04 with SIP accounts

2009-10-26T11:12:00.000Z

I now have a few customers of VoIP Advantage who use PCs running different flavours of Ubuntu as their operating system. This morning I helped a client set up a softphone to connect to our VoIP service from a PC running Ubuntu 9.04.

I discovered that the built in softphone Ekiga was a nightmare to use to connect to SIP accounts. I have made it work on older versions of Ubuntu but failed on 9.04. I then downloaded the Linux version of X-Lite from Counterpath. However, the installer fails to work on 9.04 (even after installing the library files required). After a bit of research I found some recommendations for a softphone called Twinkle.

Twinkle was easy to install using the Synaptic Package Manager and then was easy to configure using the same SIP account settings as we would normally use in Windows or Mac softphone installations. I had it making a call within about three minutes from selecting it for download. So far, I therefore recommend Twinkle for use on Ubuntu computers.

Do you have any other softphone preferences or other softphone experiences for running on Ubuntu?

Who is on the phone right now?

2009-10-26T09:00:00.002Z

As a VoIP Advantage user we are now able to let you know from your desk if a colleague is on the phone.

The Busy Light Fields (BLF) shows you the status of your colleagues' phonelines via the lights on your desk phone. Letting you see, quickly and easily, if they are on the phone, or if they have an incoming call from a glance at the lights on your desk phone.

This feature is great for businesses with remote workers or large offices as a brief look at your desk phone is all you need to tell if someone is busy. It is also useful when transferring calls, as you know the call won't go straight to voicemail thanks to the lights on your phone.

Busy lights now work with Snom, Grandstream and Yealink desk phones, which are all available to purchase through your VoIP Advantage account (in the control panel).

Contact us if you would like help setting up this feature, or visit the wiki at http://voipadvantage.wetpaint.com/page/Presence+%2F+Busy+Lamp#

Fast growing VoIP provider

2009-10-24T09:38:00.001+01:00

Our VoIP platform provider is Gradwell, who on Thursday night joined the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 50. This is a ranking of the country's 50 fastest growing technology companies over the last five years. Gradwell was ranked in the Top 50 in the UK and in the Top 5 in the South West.

Full 2009 Winners list: http://www.deloitte.co.uk/fast50/winners/winners-list-2009/

Updated control panel

2009-10-23T12:17:00.001+01:00

Last week our users may have noticed a few changes to their VoIP control panel. The changes are part of an ongoing project of enhancements to create a more user-friendly interface.

The most recent release saw improvements to the right hand side menu navigation. Links are now grouped into categories, such as Account Management or Setup, making it easier and quicker to find exactly what you are looking for.

There will be more improvements in the coming months to further enhance how you use your control panel.

Important 0870 Charge Information

2009-07-27T11:21:00.001+01:00

From August 1st calls made to 0870 numbers from VoIP Advantage lines will be included in all our Unlimited call plans, meaning even more free calls. If you’re a customer without inclusive minutes, don’t worry, as the standard call charge will drop from 7 pence per minute to just 1.25 pence per minute, a great saving of over 80% per minute.

This coincides with Ofcom’s recent announcement that they are making radical changes to the way that 0870 numbers work. They have been working with consumer feedback to bring call charges to 0870 numbers in line with those made to national numbers.

From August 1st anyone who owns an 0870 number will no longer earn money when they receive a call. Instead the owner will be charged 2.14 pence per minute for calls to their number. Customers can avoid this charge, and still receive a percentage of the call costs, by simply switching to an 0844 number.

If you need more information, please call 01273 358000.

Related Links:
- Full Ofcom 0870 statement: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/features/0870rules

The Academy of Communication, huge savings with VoIP

2009-06-24T10:37:00.004+01:00

I'm pleased to welcome Valentine Palmer of the Academy of Communication as a new client for our VoIP services and to tell you a bit about him:

VALENTINE PALMER has spent some 35 years in the world of media and entertainment. His early career embraced leading roles in London’s West End, including Bill Sykes in “Oliver”, as well as many appearances in classic British TV shows like “Dr Who”, “Emmerdale” and “Minder”. Valentine later became a producer of radio and TV commercials, as well as making many corporate and training videos for clients like BP Oil, and IBM. For the past 10 years Valentine has utilised his media skills in training people from all areas of business in the basics of personal communication skills.

Valentine’s unique approach to voice, image, body language and the designing of successful pitches and presentations has been much in demand by companies like Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Cisco Systems, Deutsche Bank. Abbott Laboratories and Hanson plc. His Speak the Best Business English courses have helped people from China, India, The Middle East, Russia, Poland, Africa, Scandinavia, Germany and Spain. Valentine has appeared as a coach on BBC TV and Channel 5 and you can see him in action on Channel 5 TV by going to the Home Page of his web site: www.AcademyOfCommunication.com

A recent convert to VoIP telephones, through VoIP Advantage, Valentine is thrilled with the huge savings over normal BT rates. As an example, he recently made a 5 minute call to his son, who is filming in Cairo. Valentine called him on his Egyptian mobile from one of the UK VoIP phones. The cost? 9p!

Divert Calls Outside VoIP - a benefit of hosted VoIP

2009-06-10T14:28:00.004+01:00

One of the benefits of hosted VoIP is the ability to add telephone numbers that aren't VoIP telephone numbers to the VoIP system.

For example, one of my clients just rang me from his mobile, saying that all his staff were out of the office at key meetings and that there was no one to answer the phones. Could I divert their incoming calls to a relative's landline for a few hours?

As it is hosted VoIP the control panel for managing the phone system is available through our website, therefore I was able to login and make the necessary changes myself. No need for me to visit the client's office.

What did I change? Well, I set up an Alias for the relative's phone number. An Alias is a pointer from our system to an external number such as someone's mobile or landline number. This Alias was then added to the internal hunt group (so that out-of-hours messages and personalised voice messages still worked). Now, when an incoming call is received, the office phones will ring and the relative's phone will ring and the call is going to be answered.

Additionally, now that the Alias has been created it can stay in the system and just be turned on or off easily in the future by myself or the client through their control panel.

Pleased to welcome new client JFDI Phoenix Ltd

2009-05-22T10:49:00.003+01:00

I am very pleased to welcome as a new VoIP client JFDI Phoenix Ltd, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. The guys at JFDI have done excellent work for me in the past and it's nice to be able to return the favour!

Being a bunch of techies, they haven't just set up a basic VoIP system, they've also had me testing the latest X-Lite 4.0 Beta running on Vista and using the SIP functionality of Fring on their windows mobiles. Both of which ran perfectly first time with VoIP Advantage :-)

Unified Communications, what is it and where is it going?

2009-03-13T16:42:00.007Z

I listened to a good talk yesterday at the Unified Communications show at Olympia. This talk was by Chris Wortt (EMEA Manager for VoIP at Polycom) and was about helping decision makers understand VoIP technologies and standards in order to develop a suitable communication strategy for their business.

Chris was a good speaker and managed to put across his beliefs as to what unified communications (UC) means and will come to mean very well. Particularly, he thinks that UC should encompass the ability to communicate and share information between people regardless of the distance between them or the device being used or the media type chosen.

The benefit to business of UC is rapid access to information and people which leads to improved efficiency and better customer service. One of the examples he used was to consolidate many instant messaging (IM) clients to one communicator; i.e. being able to start conversations with users of Windows Live Messenger or Skype or Yahoo all from the same client software. Certainly amongst my contacts each prefers to use different IM services and it becomes a pain to have them all open all of the time, so I could see his point.

To further the possibilities of consolidation Chris is an advocate of open standards (he may have other reasons too) such as SIP, HTTP, XML and open APIs. He did note that Microsoft's Office Communication Server (OCS), which is a proprietary system, is stirring things up in this arena too. I agree with both of these points, though I would like to point out that Gradwell (our VoIP platform provider) were successfully demonstrating integration between OCS and their SIP based VoIP platform at yesterday's show too.

Next, Chris sees adoption of UC as likely to be driven by UC phones. These should include video, voice, IM and CRM integration as well as being easy to use. (In fact there was a good example of a phone like this at the BNS Distribution Ltd stand with a new Grandstream video phone, due out in the next quarter or two, I liked it.)

What other things will affect adoption? Well Chris also believes that those of us who are getting used to high definition in the rest of our lives (HD TVs, BluRay DVD etc) will demand this same quality in our communications. He also believes this will be very beneficial to the users too, as, for example, wideband (Hi-Def) audio codecs (such as G.722 and G.719 Stereo) transmit far more of the conversation. Particularly for conversations with people with different accents this makes understanding each other much easier and makes conversations then run more naturally (source: Polycom's own experiences) and be less exhausting.

Increased use of high definition video and sound is also going to affect our network and bandwidth requirements. HD video will require between 1-2Mb/s of bandwidth per conversation. So Gigabit networks are going to be very necessary and anyone planning to use these services over wifi should be implementing 802.11n (preferably with 2 or more endpoints at a site) for their wifi networks.

Finally, Chris banged on about how we should get consumer level services (such as the superb user interface of the iPhone) in services aimed at businesses. To be honest this has been a frustration of mine too. Let's hope business technology products get more and more user driven!

There was more to his talk than that, but those were my favourite bits and the ones I felt were most important. Excellent.

Gradwell stability improvements

2009-02-12T09:26:00.003Z

Our VoIP platform supplier Gradwell experienced some server failures in January which led to a few weeks of very poor quality voice service. They believe this is now probably fixed and have just released an excellent explanation of what went wrong, what they have done to fix the issues and what they have done and are doing to improve system resilience even more for the future. This is available on the Gradwell blog:
http://blog.gradwell.net/2009/02/12/gradwell-january-stability-improvements/

SIP softphones for Macs

2009-02-10T12:21:00.005Z

We recently tested a number of different softphone clients running on Macs. The phones we tested included SJPhone, Zoiper, X-Lite & Express Talk. Based on ease of setup, call quality and the useability/look and feel of the phones in everyday use there was a clear winner:

Express Talk from NCH Software.

Recommended Speed Tests

2009-01-20T09:33:00.005Z

I'm often asked what we recommend to use to check the speed of an internet connection. The answer is we recommend TestYourVoIP.com and SpeedTest.net.

When running a test at testyourvoip.com, use the destination of London from a PC plugged into the same network. My result on TestYourVoip (from a Be Broadband connection) looks like this:

When running a test at SpeedTest.net I recommend running 4 or 5 tests to different servers around the country, and working out the average. The result of the check I just ran (over a Be Broadband connection) looks like this:

Both of the above results bode well for the speed of my broadband connection (both upload and download) and mean I should be experiencing high quality VoIP calls.

Monday's Network Issues - 19/01/09

2009-01-20T08:37:00.003Z

I apologise to our customers affected by the network issues yesterday. I've detailed below the events of the afternoon as reported by our platform provider Gradwell and we are told that these same issues should not happen again.

Network issue

We are currently aware of an issue which is affecting our virtualised network in London. Our server team are investigating and we will update customers as soon as possible with further information.

Update 14:30 Our server team are currently restarting some of the key servers within our Telehouse cluster and we are working closely with our platform vendors to identify the cause of the network issue we are currently seeing. We hope to provide a resolution to this problem as soon as possible.

Update 15:00 We are currently recovering all affected services and expect all services to be fully online shortly.

Update 15:40 Whilst the majority of services are now back in operation, including our VoIP NAT proxies. Our virtual PBX lon-pbx-14 is not yet back in operation. We apologise for the ongoing inconvenience to customers using these services.

Update 18:10 Our VoIP Centrex server lon-pbx-14 has now been brought back online and is handling calls correctly. We apologise for the length of time this server was unavailable.

Update 19:30 All known issues with our servers have now been resolved. If you are experiencing any remaining problems, please contact our customer services team, who will be able to advise you and inform our server team of any problems which may remain. Apologies for the extended problems today. Our server team are working through a lot of changes which should make our network more resilient in future.

Successful seminar on VoIP

2009-01-19T14:58:00.007Z

Last week I was asked to explain what VoIP is, and how it may be relevant to small businesses at a seminar run by Yoolaa. I think I managed this without putting too many members of the audience to sleep! In fact, one attendee, Richard Excell of Excell Design commented:

"Peter is an excellent trainer and speaker on the specialist subject of VoIP, and indeed an expert on advising companies and individuals on its use and implementation - if you want to know more about this subject you should be beating your way to his door!"

Here are the slides:

New VoIP Client - Kixis Design

2008-12-22T15:37:00.002Z

We're pleased to welcome Kixis Design as a new VoIP Advantage customer. Kixis Design have selected our Centrex package to manage their calls. They Ported their existing number from BT and this enabled them to get rid of a BT line, saving them even more money every month. Kixis Design specialise in graphic design for business including corporate identities, marketing and sales literature, advertising campaigns, web sites, PR and exhibition materials. For more information please visit http://www.kixis.co.uk/

Best Business VoIP Provider Award!

2008-12-19T16:56:00.000Z

We provide our VoIP service in partnership with Gradwell Ltd and we're extremely pleased to announce that Gradwell have been awarded "Best Business VoIP 2008" at the ITSPA Awards. They beat rivals such as BT, Enta, Hipcom, Inclarity, Voipfone and Viatel.

Eli Katz, Chairman of ITSPA, said:
“A distinguished panel of judges representing the thought leaders in the industry completed an extensive analysis of the UKs top VoIP products and services. Entries were judged on reliability, user-friendliness, design, innovation, price and value for money. The purpose of the ITSPA awards 2008 is to help foster excellence, and to recognise and reward achievement."

Indeed, these are the reasons why we work with Gradwell, and it is nice to see them being recognised for their hard work.

New VoIP Client - Driveway Creative

2008-12-18T16:34:00.002Z

We're pleased to welcome Driveway Creative as a new VoIP Advantage customer. Driveway Creative have selected our Centrex package to manage their calls, particularly as it enabled them to set up a phone number without needing a new BT line to be fitted. For more information about Driveway Creative and their natural stone resin based surfaces please visit http://www.drivewaycreative.co.uk/

C LEVEL Case Study / Interview

2008-11-26T16:35:00.007Z

I've just interviewed our client Daren Howarth of C LEVEL about his use of VoIP Advantage. Daren has been using our service since March 2007. It was good to hear what he thinks of the service.

At the moment he uses our service to route calls from his London and 0870 numbers to his mobile. As he's currently spending 90% of his time in France this is more important than it may sound. He'd already taken a couple of calls today. Indeed soon after he'd started with us (in Spring 2007) he took a call that has turned into his biggest client ever. Daren is very pleased that call didn't simply go to an answerphone, and he's very happy with our service. Take a look at the brief interview here: C LEVEL interview.

Very interestingly, he's spent the last 8 months building an ecohome that is going to be appearing in the next series of Grand Designs (in February 2009, should be episode 4 'The Ground House'). Please take a look at the website for the house here: http://www.groundhouse.co.uk/, and find out more about C LEVEL here: http://www.clevel.co.uk/

Hosted VoIP for start-ups & small businesses?

2008-10-31T12:53:00.003Z

A friend asked me yesterday what benefits hosted VoIP has for start-ups and small businesses. So I've had a go at outlining the more obvious reasons below:

You can get a phone number without having to get a new BT line installed for it;
It can grow with you, as it is scaleable to as many users and phone numbers as you want. You can easily add new services or remove unwanted services each month to match your current needs;
Your number is not tied to one address, so you can move your business from home office, to serviced offices to leased offices all without changing your contact details & with no downtime;
You can answer your company phone as if you're in the office, whether you're at home, on your mobile, in the office or even abroad;
It should include all these features: hunt groups; voicemail; welcome messages; voice menus; hold music; conference calls; call transfers; call redirects; & out of hours messages;
Calls between your VoIP enabled office and home workers are free;
Cheap to set up and low monthly cost;
No expensive PBX box is needed in your office or home, or expensive maintenance & support contract for said box;
Great local support from us.

ExElement Case Study / Interview

2008-10-13T17:46:00.003+01:00

I've just interviewed our client Tim Brickle of Extreme Element about his use of VoIP Advantage. Tim has been using our service for over 6 months and I thought it would be good to get some real world feedback.

I'm pleased to say the feedback was very positive, he is particularly pleased with the call quality and with our competitive hardware prices. Plus, he's already been recommending us to his friends!

There is lots more juicy detail about their VoIP experiences (and the full transcript of the interview) available here: ExElement Interview

I'd also like to plug ExElement for their extreme sports courses, training and experiences. Please do visit Extreme Element's website at http://www.exelement.co.uk

Can hosted VoIP save me money?

2008-10-07T16:58:00.006+01:00

In these times of Credit Crunch and recession, one of the areas that businesses may be able to save money is by moving their telephone services to a hosted VoIP provider (such as ourselves).

For those who don't know the terminology, hosted VoIP is the routing of voice conversations over the internet through any IP-based network. Unlike a traditional phone system which requires a PBX service in your office, hosted VoIP is a managed telephone solution delivering your calls straight to your desktop phones or computers.

In no particular order, I've listed below the key reasons that our customers say they've saved money by using VoIP:

VoIP Advantage updates the software and systems every few months (if you had your own PBX in house how often would you spend money on upgrading it?)
it gives you the ability to grow and contract your business without large capital cost
it increased our employee productivity and mobility
the voice service is bought monthly, so if you need to add or remove users you can do it, without any penalty
if you make office moves, there are no relocation costs you simply move the telephone handsets to the new office, plug them into the network and they work
integrating home workers into your organisation is just as simple. If your employees have a home broadband connection, deploying a handset to their home seamlessly connects them into your office telephone service
for calls to normal fixed line telephones or mobiles the call rates can give savings of up to 42% on standard tariffs
additionally any calls between your VoIP enabled office or home workers are free
paying BT for ISDN or analogue lines isn't cheap, by receiving your calls over broadband internet connections you can reduce a significant part of monthly overhead cost
don't miss a sale, you can forward your office extension to a home office phone, your mobile, and any fixed line number or even set a number of phones to ring (home, office, mobile and assistant)
with the VoIP Advantage online control panel you can administer changes yourself, adding new extensions, amending voice menus and hunt groups and more
you can even avoid having to buy expensive handsets by downloading free 'softphones' and just plugging your headset into your computer to use VoIP

If you now think hosted VoIP can help save you money give us a call on 01273 358000 or visit www.voipadvantage.co.uk to find out how to sign up and start saving!

VoIP Adapter Updated

2008-10-06T15:34:00.005+01:00

We have just updated the VoIP Adapter (combine your analogue phone with a VoIP service) we supply from the Flexor 151 to the Grandstream HT-502 VoIP Adapter. This product is one of the choices included within our All Inclusive Calls Packages.

The Grandstream HT-502 VoIP Adapter has the following features:

Combine your analogue phone for use with VoIP
Universal Plug-in-Play
2 FXS ports (RJ11) with up to 2 SIP account profiles
Dual10/100 Mpbs ports (RJ45) with integrated router
Advanced features: Caller ID, call waiting, 3-way conference, blind or attended transfer
Call forward, do not disturb, voicemail, MLS voice prompts
T.38 fax compatible, direct IP calling
Supports Voice Codecs: G.711(a/u-law), G.723.1, G.729A/B, G.729E
G.726-40/32/24/16 and iLBC
Web management for easy configuration and installation

Calls to 3 Mobile rate change

2008-08-08T11:30:00.001+01:00

3 Mobile UK rate change

There has been a significant rate change for calls to Three mobile and, therefore, our retail rates for these calls has changed.

Calls to Three Mobile phones will now cost:
* Peak: 10 pence per min (ppm)
* Off Peak Weekdays: 9ppm
* Weekends: 16ppm

We can Port telephone numbers from Virgin Media

2008-07-24T15:54:00.002+01:00

We can now Port Virgin Media (Telewest/NTL) as well as BT, Energis, VoIP numbers and Directory Enquiries!

It is now possible to port all BT and Virgin Media geographic area code telephone numbers. Non-geographic numbers beginning with 08 (e.g 0800, 0870, 0845) supplied by BT or Energis can also be ported. We regret that we cannot port Virgin Media non-geographic numbers beginning with 08.

We are also able to port numbers from some existing VoIP providers such as Sipgate (providing you have their agreement to do so). This takes up to 3 days to complete once permission is granted.

NB: Any numbers with services attached/associated to them (e.g. fax, broadband, alarm systems, credit card machines) will be ceased when the number is ported over to VoIP Advantage. If this is the case you must arrange to transfer these services to new number with BT or Virgin Media before attempting to port.