| reply to bigapplefan1
Re:(Packet8) Tell me why not to get Virtual Office said by bigapplefan1:
1. My company would get three lines for three people/locations. But as for me and my line: sometimes I work from home, and sometimes from my office. Can I buy an extra set of DTA/phone so I don't have to carry them back and forth from home to my office? I don't want to have to buy a fourth line, but I want all the functionality in both places. [I guess this isn't a deal breaker but it would be nice].
I don't have any experience with "virtual office", but with normal (residential) Packet8 you can easily "forward" (simultaneous ring) incoming calls to an "outside line" (either a normal POTS line, or a FWD VoIP line), in addition to ringing the DTA. As long as the "virtual office" also has this ability, you could:
1) Leave the Packet8 equipment at the location you plan to make the most outbound calls from (or the location you plan to spend the most time at, if outbound calls will be about the same).
and 2) Either "forward" (in reality "simultaneous ring") the line to a phone at the other location (possibly only on those days you will be "working from home"), or sign up with FWD (possibly buying an SPA-2000 to make this easier) and "forward" your Packet8 line to your FWD account.
Granted, this really only gets you "free incoming" at the "forwarded location" (instead of the full abilities of the Packet8 line at both locations), so it's really only 1/2 a solution. However, that may or may not be a problem. If most of your business is outgoing calls, this is obviously not going to help much. But if most of what you do is "incoming", you can simply decide which location (the office or home) you want the "full functionality" at, and do the "forwarding trick" to get incoming calls to go to the other location.
After all, you still have the option to "pay by the minute" to make an "occasional call" from the forwarded location. For example, »www.onesuite.com only charges 2.9 cents/minute to call any of the lower 48 states (via their 800 number). So you could easily use OneSuite.com for an "occasional" outgoing call (when at the "forwarded location"), and still be way ahead (cost wise) vs paying Packet8 for a full extra phone line (and without the "hassle" of carrying the equipment back and forth).... |
