Here's a reader post that came in on the VoIP Community forums. I'm posted my response there and here to solicit other feedback from readers who may have other insights.

Hi Ken, this is my 1st post so I hope I get it "right".  I will be opening up a small business & would love to use VoIP if possable & practical with a high degree of avaialbilty.  I currently use Vonage at home & have for several years. Trying to their Customer Service to even understand English is not worth the effort I have spent to date.  I want to have a 3/4 line phone system with a fax # as well. Although there will only be 1 main listed number I will need the other lines to ring & be answered by my staff.  I can get both Comcast cable or Verizon DSL for my static IP addy but how do you recommend config'ing a phone system. In the end you do you feel I should stick with traditional phone services.

It's a really great question, with a variety of answers. What you didn't say is what business you're in. If it's a high-tech, or Internet based field, that may drive some benefit out of the more complex solutions that many small business wouldn't find useful.

One option would be to buy an inexpensive computer system and set up an Asterisk Server (or Trixbox). You could use something like FreeWorld Dialup to establish the PSTN telephone number(s) for the front end. The advantage to this approach would be that you could incorporate other advanced features of larger business. Interactive Voice Response, Voice Mail, call coverage paths, etc. It could essentially give you the same power as an enterprise PBX at a fraction of the cost. I'm sure total outlay could easily be under $2500. The downside is that you have to either have the technical inclination to set it all up and get it working, or bring in a consultant to do that for you.

Another option  could be to use a Cisco multiservice router on the connection to your broadband provider. Many of them support VoIP phones and provide a pretty strong set of features. I don't honestly know if the 800 or 1800 series support your needs. That could push up to a 2800 sereies router. In a small business like yours, this might be overkill in some ways. Again you have some setup and configuration complexity to deal with.

I've honestly never used Vonage. I can't really say good or bad as to how they perform for business service delivery, but their ongoing stock declines and financial woes do raise concerns about long term viability in my mind.

Gizmo or Skype could provide some entry into business services with little or no investment. They might be worth starting out on and see how tightly your phone and data needs really integrate. If you anticipate a need to video conference with your customers, I'd look at SightSpeed and see if they might fit initially. They're primarily focused on the consumer market, but they're innovative and nimble. If they see an opportunity to do good things in the small business space, I'd expect them to move on it.

Beyond that, a simple 4 line business telephone system can be had for less than $1000 and you could easily tie in to the PSTN with that.

I think a key factor is whether you see a need to tightly couple voice and data down the road as your business grows, That's probably a key decision factor.

Comments from others?

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