RingCentral
I am a mobile worker. During a typical workday I am either working from home, visiting customers, or a combination of both. As a result, I am a heavy telephone user and rack up lots of usage for both my home office line landline and my cell phone. My combined cell phone and home office phone usage averages between 3000 and 4000 minutes, which is nearly 2 hours per workday as an average.
Several months ago I began using RingCentral.com as my home office phone provider. RingCentral provides much more flexibility than my local telephone company (Verizon.) Outbound calls via RingCentral use VOIP technology, which requries a fast Internet data connection. Luckily I have Verizon’s FIOS service for Internet access which is very speedy. (Note: you can check the suitability of your Internet connection for VOIP at this test page.)
This is the RingCentral package I chose. The “1-line” designation essentially means that I have one outbound phone line.
RingCentral Office 1-Line
Unlimited calling and faxing
$49.99/monthRingCentral Office delivers everything you need for your small office phone system, with dedicated phone lines and integrated Internet fax.
With “Plug & Ring” simplicity, it delivers a virtual PBX, VoIP phone service with unlimited local calling and faxing with voicemail, auto-receptionist, call forwarding and more.
- Unlimited calling and faxing for one user (US and Canada)
- Local direct dial number
- Toll-free or local main company number
- Dedicated fax number
- 10 Extensions
Outbound Calls
My home office line is used for both inbound and outbound calls. I spend lots of time on long conference calls. The RingCentral plan I chose provides unlimited calls within the US at no additional charge. I use an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) to connect my standard telephones to RingCentral. You can either use an ATA provided by RingCentral or bring your own. RingCentral’s configuration “wizards” made the configuration of the ATA easy and painless. Alternatively you could buy a VOIP phone that connects via Ethernet instead of using traditional phones.
Number Portability & New Numbers
One of my most important considerations was the ability to transfer my existing phone number to RingCentral. They make the process easy, and it took only a couple weeks. My Verizon home office telephone number was ported to RingCentral as my “main number”. I also ported a toll-free number I had previously used with uReach.com as a secondary toll-free number. During the porting process, I simply forwarded my current phone service to “temporary” numbers assigned by RingCentral.
You don’t have to port existing numbers, RingCentral also lets you pick new phone numbers in almost any city/state. Extra phone numbers cost a modest $5 a month.
Caller ID
RingCentral allows you to customize your outbound calls to show any phone number you either forward to RingCentral, or have assigned to you through the RingCentral service. You can also specify the Caller-ID name you want to show up on other people’s Caller-ID units. This helps keep your outward appearances consistent and professional. Additionally, RingCentral provides a mobile application for many PDAs that allows you to make calls from your mobile device using yourRingCentral service. This allows me to make calls from my cell phone that show my office CallerID instead of my mobile phone’s CallerID.
Fax Service
RingCentral assigned a dedicated inbound fax number when I created my account. I picked an area code & prefix local to my geography. Inbound faxes are delivered via email for display and printing. Outbound faxes can be sent by using software installed on your PC, or by uploading files (e.g. pdf, doc, etc.) to the RingCentral web site for transmission.
Answering Rules
One of the best features of RingCentral is the ability to customize how inbound calls are processed. The options provided are very flexible. You can choose to have an automated attendant answer calls and present a menu of options. You can also choose to have calls ring a multiple telephones either in sequence our simultaneously. My home office phone rings first for two rings, and then begins ringing my cell phone. I can answer at either, and the caller doesn’t know the difference. Additional rules can be created based on the caller. If my family calls, both my work and personal cell phones will ring.
