Some Thoughts on Phone Lines

If you need 10 phone lines, they will need to run 20, very fine, copper wires to your facility to provide service. I worked for years with one of the major telco’s in Manitoba. We would typically have charged $137.50 for the first line and $88.00 per subsequent lines on the same install. So for 10 line the math would look like.

137.50 + (9 * 88)
137.50 + (792)
= $929.50

The plus side is that these lines will continue to work in a power outage almost indefinitely. It’s a limited plus, if your PBX system and phones are not on battery backups, then you’ll still be without business phone service

They hardly take up any of your bandwidth so they aren’t going to impact your internet speed, unless you have a large number of VoIP lines on the same data connection. The drawback is that a poorly configured network in your office may in fact cause significant issues. Without a person on site who is technically adept or a provider such as NRM who takes care of these issues for you. You may find yourself frustrated to say the least.

VoIP Solution:
Additionally, if your office does not have any requirements for PBX functionality you may want to forgo any kind of system whatsoever and simply setup a one in one out scenario where every deskphone has it’s own number. Ideal in a situation like a small store or office with a single inbound phone number and a fax line. In this situation you may want to explore a VoIP solution.
When possible and technically sound, these are my favorite lines to use. They offer options far beyond your typical telco. For example, as I’m writing this it’s about – 48 with windchill. Thankfully, I’m in a situation where I was able to work from home and didn’t have to head out to brave the cold. If you find yourself with a cold front coming in, you can literally unplug the cat5 cable from the phone, grab the power supply, and take the phone home and connect it to your home internet connection. There is no configuration needed, no charge, and no limits.

Traditionally, in this situation, you might have forwarded your calls to your cell phone and that is still a suitable solution. With the VoIP solution we offer you can be assured your outbound calls will be branded with your business name and phone number rather than your cell or home number. Additionally, by bringing your work phone home with you, you can be assured you won’t get any long distance calls on your cell or home phone bill.

One more thought, with the $20 software you can download an application onto your iPhone, Android, or Blackberry phone. As long as you have a WiFi connection you can make and receive phone calls on your business line through the cell phone application.

Essentially, if you aren’t technically adept, don’t have a technically adept person on staff and don’t have a provider like NRM to take care of problems you may want to explore this option. Shaw phones work over the internet but it’s a managed service. They take care of all the technical details for you. The price is typically 15 to 20 percent more that pure VoIP line.

They will run a dedicated line so there is no interference to or from your business internet connection. This is also an excellent, feature rich service that happily recommend to customers with a few business phone lines, 1 to 5-7 depending on variables.

I don’t recommend a digital solution after about 5-7 lines due to the saving from VoIP. Depending on current market prices, it becomes more cost effective to install a dedicated internet connection to power the VoIP lines.

Crunching the numbers:
At this time, the shaw phone is $50.95 per month for the deluxe business phone with unlimited long distance to Canada and the US.

NRM installs the deluxe multi line business phones for $40.95 with more features and unlimited long distance to 60 countries.

As a random example, you can get a dedicated MTS 25 mbps down 2 mbps up connection for $61.95. So the price point to start looking at VoIP is 6 lines, more or less.

Of course, all these numbers are subject to change and are only accurate as of today, Jan 6th, 2014.