Questions from a Vonage Business User

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 2

Hi everyone. My manager asked me to switch our company over to Vonage in order to save some money on the phone system.

I called Vonage to find out about Business plans. On the Vonage web site, it listed a free month trial. We need three lines so I had to sign up for three seperate accounts with Vonage in order to get the free trial for each line. No big deal. We need to do a lot of testing before porting our phone numbers over.

The Vonage rep told me that everything that we needed to do is possible but I wanted to ask how it has worked out for people here so that I know what to expect during our trial.

I was told that rollover between lines is no problem. We need people who call any of the three lines to be rolled over to any of the other two if the line is busy. If the first and second roll over line are busy, the call must be routed to the third line etc...

We only want to check one voicemail box for all three lines. The rep told me that it was no problem but then she said something about having to deactivate the voice mail on the second and third line so that we would only have one to check. Has anyone set up a system like this and how well does it work? Of course we need unanswered that come in on any of the three lines to go into the same voicemail box.

How will this work with roll over? If the call comes in on the first line and it is busy, and the second line is also busy, and then the third line rings seven or eight times and is not answered, will the call still go to our one voicemail box?

Lastly, how much bandwidth will we need in order to have people talking clearly on three phone lines at the same time? We have a business cable connection that can be boosted up to 2.5 mb upload if need be. How much upload speed should we request to allow three phone calls and also web/email useage for 3 pcs?

Thanks for the help with these questions. I asked the Vonage rep on the phone all of these questions but I don't feel confident that she understood what I was asking.

Posts: 168 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Apr 09, 2007 Posts: 168

If you want the features of rolling over the call if the lines are busy (call hunt) or using the voicemail of only one line, it is all doable. However, it is only doable if the lines are all under the same account. If you have three separate accounts, this will not work. I also believe that you get a discount on the second and third lines (of equal or lesser value) if they are on the same account ($5 off a month?) which will end up being the same off the free first month after 7 months or so (for each line). For your question about rollover, you can view the call hunt feature on the website and it will explain it all. In the end, the last line will ring x amounts of times before being forwarded to voicemail of your choice (if you choose that option). When it comes to bandwidth, 90kpbs per line is needed if you have the quality set to high (make it around 120 or so for overhead and others like a pc). 3 x 120 = 360kpbs should be enough for the phones and light email/surfing. Keep in mind three way calls and such will double the bandwidth needs.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 2

Thanks for the info. I called back and they consolidated all three accounts into one so it should work well. The man I spoke to seemed really knowledgeable.

The way I understand it, when customers call our business number and it is busy, it will ring to the second number in the call hunt. If no one answers that second number, it is routed to the main voicemail box. If the second line is busy too, it will route the call to the third line where it can either be answered or go to voicemail.

Posts: 168 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Apr 09, 2007 Posts: 168

If the lines are all consolidated onto one account, you can configure call hunt and set it up just as you described. Just keep in mind call hunt will only invoke if the line is busy. When you do setup call hunt, Vonage will automatically turn off call waiting on the respective devices which is part of the feature.