Welcome to Smuggle Me

At my current job we’re working on implementing a VoIP system from Cisco into a new building which is slated to open next week. I’m very excited about the new phone system, because we basically have internet lines throughout the entire building and so a phone can pretty much be put everywhere.

Recently I was talking with my friend who is now living in Florida (and coincidentally was interviewing with Google) and he is a master at the open source PBX called Asterisk. After talking with him I started researching into PBX Phone System and what was available on the market today for those small business owners that are interested in using VoIP in their offices.

It’s really quite dramatic to see how low cost a small business can get VoIP service in their office. I found a company called Packet8 that had a VoIP service called Global Extension with unlimited calling to the following areas:

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Moscow-Central, Moscow-Suburb, St. Petersburg, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.

Asia: Australia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Latin America: Chile, Sao Paulo, Caracas, Puerto Rico, Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.

Middle East: Israel.

US territories: Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam

Of course, none of this matters until you look at the cost for this type of unlimited international callling.

Cost:
$79.99 per month
$39.99 one-time activation
$99.99 equipment cost
Applicable Taxes and Fees

Pretty amazing the type of phone service you can have for so cheap. They also had a ton of different call center options which would really make creating a small call center relatively inexpensive. Isn’t technology great? I wonder if their VoIP services would work across multiple locations so if I started a call center I could have my agents work from home so that I didn’t have to provide them office space? That would be a really nice feature I’ll have to research more.

No matter how you look at it, every business owner should be considering the VoIP option for their office. VoIP will become the telephone standard soon enough.