TALKING SHOP
Telecoms for Business U
by Adam Bernstein
K telecoms was opened to competition in 1984 and in recent years the combination of technology and deregulation has made choosing a communications solution a very complex, if not impenetrable, task.
With fixed lines, internet solutions and mobile phones, what should you do to get a better deal?
Fixed Lines Starting at first base, a simple fixed line with an accompanying broadband
connection is a business essential. For a premises or business wide implementation you will require a PBX system, which is, in effect, your own private telephone exchange to control and route calls around the business. Very basic products start at £130* and will serve 2 BT exchange lines with 6 extensions, more complex systems can reach into tens of thousands pounds. Your fixed lines don’t have to be rented from BT. It’s true that the physical
line is still provided and maintained by BT, unless you’re on cable, but you can source the line rental from firms other than BT and at lower rates too. Utility Options, for example, charge £32.97 plus VAT for a standard business phone line per quarter, compared to BT who charge £49.56 plus VAT per quarter.
IP Telephony An alternative to a standard fixed line is IP Telephony, the global term for
telephony that combines a standard analogue telephone line and the internet. Here you have, as an example, a fixed line for outside calls, but internally, you may have say six IP phones that connect to the business’s internal computer network which in turn connect to the outside world via broadband and your fixed line. IP Telephony uses Voice over the Internet Protocol, or VoIP for short, as
a method of converting speech into data - you may have come across this in the form of Skype – and it can handle several simultaneous calls at any one time. The beauty of this system is that if it’s a VoIP to VoIP call, it’ll be free.
But even if it’s not VoIP to VoIP, but VoIP to standard landline, it may well cost less than a BT made phone call, especially if it’s to an international or mobile number. Skype, for example, charge £4.99 plus VAT per month for unlimited calls to landlines in the UK and Europe with another £10 plus VAT per three months if you want a virtual number to receive calls from landline users. IP Telephony is a much simpler method of wiring up a business than buying in a full-blown switchboard.
Hosted Telephony Another alternative is a hosted service based on VoIP where you rent the
services of a hosted telephony system leaving you only needing to install the cabling and phone sockets around your building and purchase suitable phones (which are available from £70). Each service provider offers differing levels of service but they are
broadly similar in that hosted telephony is highly configurable – you can choose the number of lines, how calls are queued, where calls are routed to, greetings callers hear, call recording and so on. And the costs can be quite low. Hostcomm, for example, offer a service for £6.99 plus VAT a month that will have most of the features you’d want. As for call charges, calls between locations or premises on the same hosted telephony account are free. For calls to other phone numbers, Hostcomm charge 1p/minute for calls to geographic UK numbers and from 7p/minute to mobiles. Remember that VoIP cannot make 999 calls so for this reason alone you really should still keep a standard landline.
44 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • JUNE/JULY 2012
Save on Costs Apart from maybe utilising a cost saving technology, consider also changing the provider of your telephone line. The way telecoms providers structure their services only serves to muddy
the water. The advice from Utilities Options is that what looks like the cheapest deal in terms of call charges is not always the best deal. Telecoms provision and pricing is quite different from that of the gas and electricity utilities where it doesn’t matter who you buy the fuel from, it’s all the same - the difference is found in the price you pay and the service offered. With telecoms, all firms are free to buy and use whatever equipment they choose and the service provided, standards adhered to and reliability can vary accordingly. In cold cash terms, you need to look at the actual cost of the call
especially as many providers have different charging structures and much that is hidden in the small print. It’s no good going for a capped call charge where say, a 10 minute call won’t go above a certain price – in reality you’ll probably find that not only are most of your calls only a minute or two long, but that you’ll also be paying for a call with a loaded connection charge. Instead, look at the per minute charge, the minimum call charge and also
note what the connection charge is. At the same time, see if the billing is made up by the second or to the nearest minute as well as checking to see if the time is converted to the nearest penny or tenth of a penny. With this, and knowing your actual usage – call volumes, destinations and call lengths – you can make an informed decision. It’s also important to know if you are in contract to your provider.
Many contracts require 30 or 60 days notice and providers can levy some hefty penalties on those that want to leave mid contract. This can be quite galling if you don’t realise that the contract automatically restarts if you don’t give the correct notice. But you can make further savings. According to a survey by
Top10.Com,
55 percent of mobile users never use up their free bundled minutes. This means that many users could save money by changing to a cheaper tariff. Alternatively, those users could make (free) calls to other mobiles from their mobile phone instead of paying for a call from their landline. When it comes to making a comparison of various providers, there are no
sites that offer ‘uSwitch’ type online comparisons. Instead, you’ll need to make contact with the firms behind the sites. There are a multitude of firms out there – just Google ‘compare business telephone providers’. Also, consider also the Federation of Small Businesses as they offer members free business line installation and preferential call rates.
*
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx? ModuleNo=353323&C=Froogle&U=353323&T=Module
Providers Mentioned
http://www.hostcomm.co.uk/ http://www.utility-options.co.uk/ http://www.fsb.org.uk/home
Selected Comparison Sites
http://www.firsthelpline.com/business http://www.homephonechoices.co.uk/ partner-lp_how-much-money-could-i-save-on-my-phone-bill/
compare-business-phone-providers.html
http://www.uswitchforbusiness.com/business-communications
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