Vocalocity Review

The VoIP provider Vocalocity say that it markets only to small businesses, and that almost all of its customers are companies with 50 employees or fewer. As a result, Vocalocity claims to understand the small business market and offer products that work best for small businesses. The company claims in its website that using a Vocalocity system can reduce your costs by 50-80% over a traditional on-premise PBX system.

How does it work? By delivering all of your telephone services over the internet instead of the copper lines of the phones company. All you actually need are some phones and a broadband internet connection. Vocalocity owns all the heavy-duty equipment like routers and switches and takes care of maintaining and upgrading th software.

You just pick up your phone like you always have and make your calls. 

Vocalocity’s most popular plan costs just $39.95 per month per person for unlimited inbound and outbound calls, and includes a whole laundry list of features including: caller ID, call waiting, forwarding and holding, 911, 411, conferencing, do not disturb, voicemail and detailed call logging, to name a few.

And because it all runs on the internet, you can access all your phone features from and computer and phone with an internet connection. So your employees in remote locations or even with cell phones can access all the same features. Plus, you get an internet portal; to help you add extensions, change rules for night lines and forwarding, and to manage every other aspect of your account.

There is no limit to the number of callers you can have, save for bandwidth considerations. Figure that you will need about 64 kbps of bandwidth per simultaneous call. Check with your internet service provider to see how much bandwidth you have available in your connection. If you will be making a large number of simultaneous calls, you might need to increase your bandwidth.

Vocalocity also offers a lower-cost plan. The metered plan is just $14.95 per month plus 3 cents per minute for calls. Yo might use this in a conference room or a visitor lobby, where call are mostly internal.

With all the above plans, international calls are extra, with prices based on the country you are calling and the phone system within that country. Prices run from about a nickel (France to as much as $1 (Belarus) per minute.

Other add-ons, which you would purchase a-la-carte, include additional local numbers, toll-free numbers, virtual local numbers ( a local number in a city where you are not located, but perhaps your customers are), paperless faxing call groups and more.

In addition to traditional customer service, the company offers webinars, white papers, case stories and other resources such as FAQs.

Vocalocity is a privately held company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. They can be reached at 1-877-862-2562 or at vocalocity.com. Customer service can be reached Monday through Friday from 9 am to 9 pm (EST) at 866-499-9474.

AireSpring Data/SIP Review

AireSpring offers a broad range of telecommunications services for customers ranging from small businesses with just a few lines all the way up to full enterprise coverage.  Product offerings extend to not just local and long distance voice calls, but also include high-volume data applications: 

High-volume local and long distanceVoIP / SIP (local and long-distance)High-bandwidth data (up to 10 Mbps)Conference CallingMultiple-location and enterprise networks 

If you have a standard PBX requiring a TDM handoff, AireSpring’s offers Dynamic X,  a T-1 line which brings together voice and data over the same line.  Instead of being forced to allocate fixed percentages of your bandwidth to either voice or data,  Dynamic X, as it name suggests, dynamically allocates your bandwidth to voice or data (across up to 16 IP addresses), giving voice calls priority when needed. 

If your PBX is IP-enabled, AireSpring offers traditional SIP trunking.  Get rid of your copper phone lines and PRI (T-1 service) completely and go exclusively over the Internet for your phone service.  Because calls go out over the Internet, AireSpring can use least-cost routing to cut your phone bills.  Trunks start at just $8 each per month.   

As with all SIP-based systems, available bandwidth will be the primary factor determining how many simultaneous calls your phone system will be able to handle.  Make sure you have enough to handle your calls plus your anticipated data needs.  

AireSpring also offers virtual DIDs (local phone numbers) as a way to reduce your use of expensive 800 numbers.  Let’s say you are based in New York, but you get a lot of 800 number calls from Chicago.  Drop the 800 number and replace it with a virtual DID in Chicago for 50¢ per month (including usage).  It works like a local number for your customers but costs you much less. 

SIP trunking is entirely Internet based, so all the features available in your headquarters are available to your entire network. You will no longer be location-dependent for your phone service. Callers won’t see a difference between an extension in your office and an at-home worker or someone calling from on the road.  And all calls between and among network users will be free. 

If you have an existing data or voice network running across multiple carriers, AireSpring’s offers a Virtual Private Network (VPN) offering Multiple Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) a technology which enables packets to be switched between carriers regardless of the transmission protocols involved.  Run all your  traffic -voice, video and data – over a single network. 

Pricing for the company’s varying product offerings is based on a number of factors, including: 

The number of concurrent calls you want your system to be able to handleThe combination you want of local, long distance, data and teleconferencingThe types of equipment you have and its locations. 

 AireSpring has negotiated deals with Tier-1 carriers and currently covers 95% of the United States.

According to the company website, the network is designed to accommodate large-volume and high-capacity users.  Partner companies include such well-known names as Verizon, Global Crossing and Qwest. 

AireSpring, is a privately-held company located in Van Nuys, California, and can be reached at 1-800-825-1055.  For support, call 888-389-2899 or visit www.airespring.com.