Back in March, I wrote a post about my search for a different office phone setup. I had been using a custom ring number (inexpensive but doesn’t allow separate outgoing messages for the home and office numbers) and had excluded the option of a business cell phone, simply because I dislike carrying and talking on a cell phone (there, I said it!). After much hemming and hawing and gnashing of teeth, I decided to switch my office phone line to Vonage’s minimum VOIP (Internet phone) plan, and around the same time I purchased a WebEx Event Center account for my translation webinar business.
My verdict on both of these services is: meh. Which, now that it’s been added to the Collins English Dictionary, is a legitimate expression of indifference and mediocrity. So here we go with the details:
For now, I’m sticking with Vonage, but I don’t love them. I have their “US & Canada 300” plan, which runs $11.99 per month plus taxes and fees. I set it up myself with no problems, Vonage ported my custom ring number with no problems, and the service worked as soon as I connected the Vonage box. Given the overall reputation of telcos and customer service, you have to give them credit for that! However, the sound quality on the Vonage line is far from stellar. It’s definitely not as clear as a land line or even Skype; I haven’t had any dropped calls, but the sound quality just is not smooth: lots of blips and skips and missed half-syllables, which can be irritating on a business call. And it’s worth noting that my DSL connection is fast enough that Skype, YouTube, etc. are no problem. In addition, the outgoing sound (meaning what the person I’m talking to hears) seems to cut out completely for a second or two if I’m talking on the Vonage line and my home land line rings. Still, for $16 a month including taxes, it’s workable. I mainly have the line so that my clients get a nice, professional outgoingl message, and so that I can update the message when I’m out of the office. One Vonage feature I’ve really come to love is the e-mailed .wav files of voicemail messages. When I’m away for a few days, for example at the ATA conference, I can just listen to my voicemails on my netbook and then decide if I need to respond. No more calling the office line a few times a day to check for messages! Executive summary: not a bad value for the cost, but not advisable if you talk on the phone a great deal for business.
On the other hand, WebEx proved to be a fairly crashing disappointment. Speaking of Translation purchased a subscription to Event Center 100 for $99 a month, a fairly large investment for our small venture. However, we were convinced that WebEx was the webinar platform of choice for enterprise-quality events, so we felt that the investment would pay off. It took us a few tries to get the platform working (and we’re not technophobes!) and the user interface has some definite flaws. For example when you schedule an event, the default number of attendees is “99999,” regardless of the number of attendees that your account allows. So, if you forget to change that number, your webinar can be oversubscribed before you realize the error. In addition, the interface allows you to enable both the over-the-phone audioconference option and the VOIP audioconference option, but they are not compatible with each other; and that’s before you find out that the VOIP feature is essentially unusable due to its poor sound quality. On three of the webinars we hosted, the presenter’s audio connection suddenly dropped in the middle of the session (different presenters using different phone providers) and our attendees had many problems configuring WebEx’s viewer widget to view our live webinars and our recordings. WebEx’s tech support reps were always polite and helpful, but in the end it took a huge amount of our time to resolve (or attempt to resolve) these problems and we ended up issuing a lot of complimentary webinar vouchers to make up for them. There are also some features that seem pretty basic that WebEx just does not have: no on-hold or waiting music for attendees, no way to block attendees from hearing what the presenters are saying before the session starts, etc. So, we’re all through with WebEx for now!
On a more positive note, I recently discovered a very neat audioconferencing tool, FreeConferenceCallHD. Like other free audioconference services, this one allows your call attendees to phone a toll number and participate in your conference call while you control things via a web dashboard. The dashboard allows you to mute and unmute people, record the call, etc. The very appealing feature of FreeConferenceCallHD is the option for attendees to connect by Skype, using a Skype-to-Skype contact (free) rather than a Skype-to-phone contact. For example, attendees just add “freeconferencecallhd.XXXXXXXXXX” (where the Xs represent your toll dial-in number) as a Skype contact; the contact request is automatically accepted, then the attendee initiates a call to that number and they’re placed into the audioconference. This is nice because it eliminates international access number problems; no more “I live in the Czech Republic but I have a Slovenian cell phone number, so what number should I call???” I’ve conducted two very successful tests with this platform; at first I was honestly skeptical that a free service could provide a high-quality product, but the two calls I’ve done have honestly gone better than any of the WebEx sessions that we did. So, this looks like an attractive option for 2012!
Thanks for the follow up on your recent tech acquisitions! At one time I used a cell for business and I found it to be nightmarish – many dropped calls and terrible reception. That is okay if someone knows they are calling your cell, but not if they think it is your business. I actually got T-Mobile to let me out of the contract (!!!!) it was so bad (how often do you hear that!).
I have a landline for my business number. I can’t get wav files of the messages mailed to me and really miss that feature. I often don’t hear messages for days because, really, who listens to old fashioned voice mails anymore? Century Link (formerly Qwest) should add that (basic) service.
And, I am there with you on Webex. What a terrible product. I am still scratching my head as to why they have so many enterprise customers, unless they triage their customers and give good service to them and funnel smaller customers to more clogged Internet lines? Not sure, but like you said, it was really terrible and I would never use it again or recommend it to anyone. I understand that webinar technology is still new (in real world terms) and may have issues sometimes, but Webex’s level of problems goes way beyond that.
I have used FreeConferenceCall’s services before and always had good experiences, so looking forward to using that for our long-distance seminar attendees.
Thanks Eve! As always, I agree with you completely 🙂 I like your take that cell phones are OK if you’ve told someone “call my cell phone,” but when they think they are calling your main business number, it can sound a little fly-by-night. Honestly I am surprised that CenturyLink doesn’t do .wav files as part of the standard package; we should ask them about that! And WebEx, where do I start… it really was an eye-opening look into so-called “enterprise-quality” communication tools! As you said, I’m definitely willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of the newness and complexity of the platform. But multiple dropped audio connections and an unusable VOIP feature? Not impressive for $100 a month!
I have started using Google Voice, and it’s a nice alternative to paying for a service like Vonage, especially if your main goal is to have a professional voicemail message for clients. It’s free to receive incoming calls and to make outgoing calls within the US and Canada, and international calls are a low per-minute rate (like Skype). The only other cost that I know of is if you want to port an existing number to Google Voice instead of getting a new one from them.
The sound quality isn’t perfect, but it sounds like it isn’t too great with Vonage, either. So far I have only experienced a tinny quality, and I have been told that sometimes the other person hears a little echo–but it hasn’t ever cut out on me. Google Voice lets you make and receive calls through your browser (great for travelling) or have calls forwarded to other phones. If you want, you can even group your existing contacts so that different callers get different outgoing messages. And it transcribes your voicemail (with varying degrees of accuracy) as well as emailing you the sound file.
It might be an alternative that’s worth looking into if you’re unhappy with your Vonage service.
Thanks for that tip, Rachel! Now that I’ve extricated myself from my WebEx subscription, the phone line may be next. That is interesting to hear about Google Voice; it sounds pretty similar to Vonage in terms of quality and features, but free is always very, very good!
Couple of thoughts on VOIP:
*) Having real phone line cutting into your VOIP call can sometimes happen if you forgot to put a filter on the normal phone line, or put it only on one of the phones when there is a splitter.
*) I don’t know about Vonage box, but if it is sitting behind the router (e.g. WiFi router), this may cause loss in quality. If there is a way to put it right on DSL connection or right behind the DSL box, this may improve the situation. Of course, if your DSL box is all singing and dancing and does WiFi as well, you may not have an option. In which case, you (or a friendly geek) may need to open some specific VOIP ports to improve the performance.
*) Once you are sick with Vonage, look at something like Vitelity (http://www.vitelity.com/). They offer prepaid phone lines at under $2/month plus cheap calls. If your line is not called very often, that’s a good offer. And they are very big carrier. The disadvantage is that you need to have your own device (similar to Vonage box) and that you need to configure it a bit more. But it certainly has a much better value for money longer term than Vonage (which has a bad reputation in more professional VOIP circles)
For the conference, you may want to have a look at Google+ hangouts. They are rapidly adding features to compete with WebEx and Skype and have recently added conference recording and calls both in and out, including – I believe – free options.
Good luck,
Alex.
Thanks for your comment and for those suggestions; I set the Vonage system up myself (as opposed to having my IT-guy husband do it), so that may be part of the problem! And thanks for the tip on Vitelity, I will take a look at their website.