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Selkowitz Technology | Seattle’s small business network and telecom consultant
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Many of the business telecom carriers are rolling out flat long distance service packages to counter the VoIP services. While these can sometimes be of benefit, its worth a bit of math to be sure.
For example Verizon was offering my client 5 lines, features, and flat LD for $350/mo plus fees and taxes. With Integra as I proposed they would get the same 5 lines and features for just over $100 plus fees and taxes. To make up the difference the client would need to spend over 5000 minutes on long distance each month - something few businesses that size do.
In many cases an optimal solution is to mix and match if possible - buy a few inexpensive lines without LD (or per minute LD) for your inbound calls and local calls, then a few flat rate LD lines for outbound LD calls. The next trick is to teach your staff which lines to use when.
The alternative to teaching staff which line to use is to have a PBX phone system with “automatic route selection” or “least cost routing” (ARS/LCR) which can be programmed to pick lines based on cost - long distance calls will automatically be sent over the lines with flat rate long distance service.
The Author: Kevin Selkowitz
About: Kevin Selkowitz is the founder and lead consultant for Selkowitz Technology, a Seattle-area small business systems consulting company. We focus on the four major technology needs of small businesses - phone systems, phone and internet service, servers/network infrastructure, and business applications.
This entry was posted by Kevin Selkowitz, on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Phone and Internet Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response on the right, or trackback from your own site.
