Banana Phone, ring, ring, ring (it's a phone with a peel)

I've chosen a VOIP telephone service, it's called Ring Central. It's very complex (it seems complex now because I'm not familiar with its features). But complex is good; it has many features that will certainly meet all my phone service and PBX needs.

The service costs about $29.99 per month for unlimited local phone service. Each phone number you choose comes with a free number. I actually found consecutive phone numbers when running through the set-up process ((978) 894-1186, 1187, 1188 and 1189). I bought two phone numbers, so I actually have 4. Each number can send and receive faxes, so you can use a number for both or just assign fax activity to one phone number. Having an 800 number costs $4.99 per month. I'm in the process of porting my existing 800 number to Ring Central so I'll have the same 800 number... additional phone numbers, users and 800 numbers are only $4.99/month.

The service has excellent auto-receptionist features, all kinds of forwarding capabilities and a slew of other features: voice mail, call handling and forwarding, flip a call, fax, messaging, unlimited texting, activity logs, contacts, softphone, mobile apps, departments, customizable personal greetings, dial-by-name directory, call recording (legally tricksy), extensions, call screening, hold music, music during call transfer, customizable outgoing caller ID, customizable outgoing fax settings, full-feature IP phones, ring out, crazy amazing conferencing (up to 15 people), cheap international rates with a certain amount of free calls to select countries, email notifications for anything/everything and other features I don't have a handle on yet.

The service has assigned me an account manager and they want to make an appointment to go through the entire system with me over the phone.I'm definitely going to need this tour and I'll probably try to do that later today.

I'm optimistic that this will work well for the business. In the past, we've spent $29.00 on one 5-6 minute phone call to Australia, so having an unlimited local phone service for the same money is really a bargain. I have a 30-day free trial in the works, so I'll take this test-drive and see what the service has under the hood.

I'll update the service's performance and suitability to our phone needs in a future post.