IT Cost Reduction

Reminiscent of the dot-com bubble during the last years of the 20^th century, Voice over IP service providers are popping up, almost on a daily basis. With the growing adoption of VoIP services in both business and residential environments, anyone with the capacity for offering IP-based telephony services is looking to make a dollar on it. And why not? VoIP is, after all, quickly replacing the PSTN for voice communications.

 

The latest provider to pop up in the United States is actually a Canadian provider, babyTEL, which offers VoIP services to both consumers and businesses, and is now looking to grow its North American footprint. It bills itself as an alternative to not only traditional telcos, but also to the “big VoIP players,” offering not only competitive rates, but innovative solutions and outstanding customer service that it combines into an offering it says the bigger players cannot match.

 

“Now, we’re open for business in the U.S., supplying Americans with no-hassle VoIP service, U.S. phone numbers, and responsive tech support, something the so-called giants have trouble delivering,” said babyTEL president Stephen Dorsey.  “We know the key to success is serving, not alienating, the customer.”

 

Of course, babyTEL offers the VoIP basics, but it also offers features the resemble unified communications services, like fax-to-email and simultaneous ringing on multiple devices, limiting the number of devices to which a user must actually attend and extending communications capabilities to wherever the user may be — at home, in the office, on the road, or anywhere else.

 

For enterprise customers, babyTEL offers its service as a way of replacing some or all of the PSTN lines in their legacy switch or key system with SIP-based VoIP capability ­­— it is a scaled version of its VoIP service for customers that require greater capacity that babyTEL’s SOHO/residential service. 

 

With babyTEL, businesses do not need top replace their legacy PBX (News - Alert) and phones if they choose not to. Instead, they can add a SIP gateway to interface with babyTEL’s services (an IP PBX or SIP-capable legacy PBX can connect directly to babyTEL service). This allows for maximum flexibility, not only in terms of gaining the functionality SIP-based telephony services offer, but also with regard to the migration path a business chooses. They can use their legacy analog phones or invest in new IP endpoints, or a combination of the two, depending on need and budget.

 

For remote offices, home workers, or travelers, babyTEL offers several options for connectivity, including IP phones, and ATA for connecting an analog device, a WiFi (News - Alert)-enabled device, or a softphone. With these alternatives, today’s mobile workers can continue their business while continuing to enjoy babyTEL’s services.

 

Finally, for businesses (or residential customers) that would prefer to maintain their local phone number — and there are substantial benefits in doing so — babyTEL offers the ability to port that local number from a local carrier. Alternatively, that local number can be maintained with the carrier as a PSTN backup, but calls can be automatically forwarded to a new babyTEL number.