VoIP/Phone service

• Google Voice. Voice is Google’s phone service, which launched to much fanfare in March 2009. It provides free PC-to-PC voice and video calls, free PC-to-phone calls within the U.S. and cheap calls elsewhere (for users in the U.S. only). One of Google Voice’s most useful features (again, only available to U.S. residents) is that it enables users to have one number that they can use anywhere — any calls placed to that number will ring all of the users’ configured phones. The service also provides a range of useful additional features, such as voicemail, SMS, conference calling, call screening and transcription of voicemail messages.
• Vbuzzer. A VoIP and IM service that, unlike Skype, is based on open protocols like XMPP and SIP. It offers free PC-to-PC calls, as well as paid-for PC-to-phone calls, with typically cheaper rates than Skype. It also features voicemail, call forwarding, caller ID, web conferencing and fax service.
• VoxOx. VoxOx is trying to be an “all-in-one” messaging app for both the desktop and mobile devices. It combines phone calls, IM, SMS, video chat, conference calling and even fax. It also provides similar “one number anywhere” functionality to Google Voice, and outgoing calls can be placed at competitive rates. While Charlie didn’t particularly like the Mac client when he reviewed it back in January, finding some shortcomings, it’s worth a look. The iPhone app is interesting because rather than relying on VoIP, it uses callbacks — the service can ring you on any convenient nearby phone line.
• Viber. iPhone users looking for a way to make free VoIP calls should take a look at Viber, a VoIP app that allows iPhone-to-iPhone calling over 3G and Wi-Fi connections. The app is free, runs in the background, doesn’t have any ads and won’t charge you anything to make calls. Android and BlackBerry apps are apparently in the works, which would extend the app’s reach significantly.
• Grasshopper. Looking for a step up from Skype to a more business-oriented virtual phone system? Grasshopper provides many of the features found in expensive office PBX systems for a fraction of the cost, including support for multiple users, each with their own extension, individual greetings, voicemail, web access and notifications by email or text message, as well as the ability to have local or toll-free numbers for people to call you on. Charlie was impressed by the product and its slick web interface when he reviewed it back in 2009. The type of advanced functionality you get comes at a higher cost than consumer-focused offering like Google Voice and Skype, however, with a range of plans available.
• 8×8 Virtual Office Pro/Solo.  8×8 provides another useful VoIP-based virtual business phone system. It’s available in two editions, Virtual Office Pro for businesses requiring multiple extensions, and Solo for individuals (see Charlie’s recent review). The system includes business numbers, voicemail, call waiting, music on hold, caller ID, three-way calling and the ability to record calls for storage as digital audio files. It costs $49.99 per extension per month for the Pro Edition or $7.99 per month for the Solo edition.

Video Chat

While some of the options listed above, like Google Voice,  provide video calling as part of the services they offer, there are also some dedicated video chat apps:

• Tinychat. For multiuser video chats, Tinychat is great. It’s dead simple to use, requires no login, and has a clean interface. It’s Flash-based, so it should work in most browsers and up to 12 people can join a video chat simultaneously. The basic service is free.
• ooVoo. ooVoo also provides free multiuser (up to six people simultaneously) video chat, and has clients available for Mac, PC and a wide range of mobile devices. It even allows for high-quality video calling over 3G wireless networks.
• FaceTime. Apple’s video chat application is no longer just for iPhone users. With the launch of FaceTime for Mac in February, it works on Macs and any iOS device with a forward-facing camera, it makes it possible to place Mac-to-Mac, Mac-to-iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, and iPhone/iPod touch/iPad -to-iPhone/iPod touch/iPad calls. Video quality is high, supporting up to 720p resolution on more recent Macs.

What are your favorite alternatives to Skype?

Photo courtesy Flickr user DanBrady

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As with its Pro cousin, Virtual Office Solo includes a dedicated business phone number (or you can port your existing number). Calls may be sent and received through any Windows or Mac web browser with Java 10.0 or higher; no additional software downloads or added plug-ins are required. Existing contacts can be imported from Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Facebook and Twitter.

When you’re away from your desk, or at certain times of day, calls can be forwarded to a mobile or home phone. The system includes voicemail, call waiting, music on hold, caller ID, three-way calling and the ability to record calls for storage as digital audio files.

Virtual Office Solo also includes some features that go beyond services like Google Voice, including unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada, web conferencing with video for up to 15 simultaneous participants, and Internet faxing. The system also includes free mobile apps that enable users to place and receive calls through iOS and Android devices while displaying their Virtual Office Solo phone number as the Caller ID.

What Solo doesn’t have is extensions and the “phone tree” or auto-attendant features of a full PBX, so it isn’t suited for multi-person enterprises. It also doesn’t have voice-to-text message transcriptions, and is not compatible with VoIP desk phones; you’ll need the more expensive Pro version to get all of these features.

Virtual Office Solo is similar in many ways to other phone services, like Google Voice, VoxOx and Grasshopper. Its feature set is perhaps closest to Grasshopper’s, but at $7.99 per month, 8×8′s service has more options and is less expensive. The product can be ordered online from the 8×8 website and activated immediately.

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netTALK has introduced the Duo, which is a hardware-plus-service option that’s somewhere in the middle. The hardware is a little box that’s about as simple to set up as anything I’ve seen. Plug it into an Ethernet connection, power and a phone, then go to the netTALK website to activate it, and you’ve got unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada, and cheap rates to the rest of the world.

During the activation process, you can choose your area code and exchange, although you can’t select an exact number. You’ll also need to provide your street address so that the service can give you accurate 911 service. netTALK doesn’t yet offer a way to port existing numbers, although that’s apparently in the works.

If you want to, you can connect the Duo to your network and use the company’s software to make calls. There’s even beta videophone software, although I haven’t tried it, as the software and drivers are Windows-only. And there are smartphone apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, although it’s not currently possible to link your Duo account to the mobile apps.

The netTALK service includes all the basic services we’ve come to expect from VoIP, such as call forwarding, caller ID, three-way calling, and call waiting. But you won’t find extensions, conditional forwarding, or any of the other advanced features that more business-oriented services offer. Voicemails are sent to your email box as a WAV file; netTALK doesn’t offer transcriptions like Google Talk and some other services do.

The netTALK Duo is priced at $69.95, which includes one year of service. Subsequent years are apparently $29.95. If you need cheap incoming and outgoing calls, can do without sophisticated call management features, and don’t want to be connected to a computer all the time, netTALK’s Duo may be a reasonable option.

Have you used the netTALK Duo? What VoIP solutions do you prefer?

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Devices

• The Overdrive Mobile Hotspot from Sprint. I’ve been very impressed with the simplicity and usefulness of this device while I’m on the road. I took it on a cross-country train trip last summer, and was able to get a 4G or 3G signal in many large and medium-sized cities. I’ve had to exchange this device twice: The first one stopped booting, and the second one had a defective USB port. But Sprint was very good about replacing them, and the current version came with updated firmware and seems to be faster and more reliable than the original one.
• The HTC EVO 4G, and most of the Android apps I wrote about in November. I’m still discovering more cool apps, and have added some like the official LinkedIn app that was recently released.
• The ZaggSPARQ backup battery charger for USB devices. Much as I like the EVO, I have to watch its battery use, so having some extra power in my pocket is awfully handy.
• The third-generation Kindle. I find it so comfortable that I forget I’m using an e-book reader.

Apps

• TotalFinder, the Mac Finder replacement that adds tabs and other enhancements. The latest version has added cut and paste, a real necessity.
• The Firefox add-ons that require secure connections over wi-fi networks. I’m still using Firefox, thanks to the add-ons I still can’t live without. Most are now available for Chrome; I might be able to switch once something like Gmail Manager is available for that browser.
• My web-design company is using the Google Font API for embedding fonts into websites.
• The “Call from Gmail” function that Google Voice debuted in 2010.

I tried some really great hardware and software last year. There are some other products that didn’t make the list, not because I didn’t like them, but because they didn’t fit my workflow for one reason or another.

The innovations from 2010 were quite impressive. I look forward to seeing more great stuff in 2011!

What cool new apps and devices did you discover in 2010?

Image by sxc.hu user coscurro

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Now, however, Google is extending free calling “in the spirit of holiday giving,” according to a post on the Google Voice blog.

It seems that Google Voice is growing in popularity, despite having had several outages in recent months. There are presently no GV phone numbers available in my area, but it’s possible to select numbers in many locations.

Let us know what you think of Google Voice in the comments.

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However, when I logged into one of my Google Apps accounts last night, the new option to “Call Phone” appeared under Chat. This function appeared automatically, without any action by a Google Apps administrator.

The new service hasn’t yet appeared on any other Apps accounts that I know of. The account showing the new option is one that already had a Google Voice number associated with it, so it may be that existing Google Voice customers are getting the new service first.

I made several calls with the new service yesterday, and everyone found the sound quality to be very good. It certainly seems to be popular, since Google announced that one million calls were made in the first day of the service.

By the way, everyone with a U.S. Gmail (not Google Apps) account should now be able to dial out using the “Call Phone” option, even if you haven’t selected a Google Voice number. If you want to receive calls, you can find an option to “upgrade your account” at no charge using the “Google Voice” link in Settings, Chat.  Caution! Don’t try to upgrade your account if you are not in the U.S.

Have you tried the “call from Gmail” service? What do you think of it?

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As always, Google is rolling out the new service gradually. It hasn’t become active on all of my Gmail accounts yet. Also, Google says that it will be available for Google Apps, but doesn’t specify a timeline.

So you’ll want to log into your Gmail account and see if there’s a new option that says “Call Phone.” It will appear under Chat in the navigation menu on the left. If you see this option, your account is ready for phoning!

It’s pretty simple to set up. You’ll need to:

• Install the voice and video plugin, which is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
• Select a Google Voice phone number. If you don’t already have one, you’ll be prompted to do this. Numbers are available only in the continental U.S., but you can select many different area codes and locations.
• If you want to receive incoming calls in the Gmail web interface, you’ll also need to go to the “Phones” tab of your Google Voice settings and check the option to forward calls to Google Chat.

Once you’ve finished the setup, just click the “Call Phone” link and a dialer will be displayed. You can search through your contacts, or enter a number directly.

I’ve made some calls using the internal speakers and microphone of my 13 inch Mac Pro, while connected via a wireless network to a cable connection that generally offers download speeds of 15-20 Mb/s. Sound quality on both ends of the calls was surprisingly good, with just a tiny bit of the delay that seems endemic to VoIP services.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada are currently free, and international calls are billed at the usual Google Voice rates.

If you spend a lot of time in the Gmail web interface, you’ll probably find this new service very useful.

Do you use Google Voice?

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• Forward cell or landline numbers to Google Voice. It’s not yet possible to port existing numbers to Google Voice, but forwarding allows you to take advantage of its automated message transcription service and some of its other features. Not surprisingly, the quality of the transcriptions varies, but they’re generally good enough to save the hassle of calling your voicemail to listen to messages.
• Create a “voicemail-only” Google Voice number to use when you don’t want to give out your real phone number. When setting up such an account, you’ll need to forward it to an existing number in order to verify it, but you can then set the number to “Do Not Disturb, ” or delete the forwarding number entirely in the Google Voice web interface.
• Create numbers in area codes other than your own. The phone company used to charge huge fees for “foreign exchange” numbers; now, you can create a Google Voice number in any U.S. area code where numbers are available (and there are lots to choose from, except in Alaska and Hawaii).
• Create numbers that spell something memorable or fun. When searching for a new number, you can type in a word, and Google Voice will find numbers that spell what you’re looking for, or you can use a site like PhoneSpell.
• Set up Google Voice numbers to track marketing campaigns. Using multiple numbers is an easy and free way to find out how effective a particular advertising medium is.

Note that Google Voice only allows you to sign up for one number per email address. But email addresses don’t have to be Gmail accounts; any valid email address will do. Also, you can only forward one Google Voice number to a specific phone number, and you can’t forward one Google Voice number to another Google Voice number.

What creative ways have you found for using Google Voice?

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It’s a busy space, Goober competes with desktop multi-IM programs like Pidgin, Adium, Trillian and Digsby; web-based services like Meebo; mobile apps like Fring and Beejive; and programs that add social networks to the mix, like Socialite. It also wants to compete with services that add voice and/or video chat functions, like VoxOx and Nimbuzz. The elephant in the voice and video communication arena, of course, is Skype, which has just rolled out a Windows-only beta of group video chats. Google Talk already offers video chat, and its acquisition of Gizmo5 will certainly result in upgrades to Google Voice. And Goober also gets to compete in the silly name contest.

So why do we need another multi-protocol communication service? Goober claims it has the following advantages over Skype and other VoIP providers:

• Users can call more countries (277), although Goober doesn’t offer incoming landline calls like Skype and Google Voice.
• Users can chat with users of protocols including ICQ, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber,
  AOL, Yahoo and QQ.
• The program integrates with Facebook and Twitter.
• Goober will offer six-way video conferencing on both PC and Mac (during the beta, conferences are limited to four).
• Outgoing call costs are 25-50 percent less, with calls in the US and Canada offered at a “record low” $.01 per minute.

I’ve tried the Mac beta, and while it’s usable, it’s not as elegant as the app from Nimbuzz (although it beats VoxOx’s ugly interface by a mile). The cluttered interface is not enhanced by obtrusive, animated banner ads.

Entering one’s IM and social network accounts is simple enough, although one must provide passwords, as there is no support for oAuth or Facebook Connect. It is possible to enter more than one account from the same service, but I wasn’t able to use Google Apps credentials to add Gtalk accounts.

Its tools for managing contacts are limited. Goober allows users to create groups, but if a contact appears twice (for example,  as a Gtalk and Facebook connection) the entries can’t be merged. One can’t sync or import address books, either.

I’m disappointed that Goober doesn’t support Growl, having opted instead for non-standard on-screen notifications. Goober also has mobile and web versions, but these are really different products with less robust feature sets.

For Mac users, Goober offers video conferencing options not (yet) available on Skype. For daily IMing, though, I’ll probably continue to use Adium.

Goober is offering the first 5,000 people to download the beta of Goober 3.0 a free voucher for $5 in credit. Try it, and let us know what you think in the comments.

• Use their existing cellphone or landline number, or get new numbers.
• Route phone calls to smartphones and other locations. One can set up Ribbit to ring multiple landline and cell numbers, as well as Skype. It can also be set to send SMS alerts with notifications of missed calls and transcribed messages.
• Make and receive calls through Ribbit’s web interface.
• When an incoming call arrives, be presented with what Ribbit calls “Caller ID 2.0,” showing the Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr statuses of the caller.
• Transfer calls.
• Receive recorded and/or transcribed messages. Ribbit Mobile offers a choice of vendors, so one can select computer-generated or human-produced transcriptions.
• Archive and search messages.
• Take notes during conversations and attach them to the record of the call.
• Dictate memos.
• Specify what caller ID will be displayed with outgoing calls.

Ribbit Mobile offers several ways to interact with its service, including an iPhone app, plus web-based and AIR widgets for messages, conferencing, dialing and SMS.

With all of these features, I really wanted to like Ribbit Mobile. Unfortunately, at this point, it has some major shortcomings:

• Slow interface speed. The web interface is Flash-based, and seems to be very slow to load. I counted the load time (on my Mac, using Firefox 3.5) at over 90 seconds!
• Poor contact management. Existing contacts can be imported through Plaxo. Plaxo has its own problems, which I won’t go into here, but Plaxo imports are extremely slow (20 minutes for about 1,400 contacts), and the imported contact file does not include the social network information that’s central to the “Caller ID 2.0″ idea. You can go through each contact in Ribbit and add the social network info, but Ribbit deletes all of your current contacts if you re-import from Plaxo, which means that any social network links you add will disappear next time you import an updated Plaxo file. Also, since Ribbit offers no way to export its contact list, you’ll be forced to maintain two separate address lists if you don’t want to be tied to Ribbit.
• Inconsistent linking to social networks. The connections to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter seem to require frequent re-linking.
• Limited community interaction. Surprisingly, one must get approval to even view the forums. Not surprisingly, there aren’t many forum posts, which doesn’t strike me as a good sign.

During the beta period, Ribbit Mobile is free, and U.S. and UK residents can request beta invitations. After the beta period ends, Ribbit anticipates that the service will be sold for $10-$30 per month.

Ribbit Mobile has potential, but right now, its slowness and limited contact management mean that it’s not yet ready for daily use. Ribbit was acquired by telecoms firm BT in 2008, so let’s hope that it gets its act together.

Share your thoughts on Ribbit Mobile in the comments.

GVoiceNotifier.NET is a free download, and requires Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 with the .NET Framework 3.5.

Found a useful Google Voice app? Let us know about it!

(via Lifehacker)

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Ribbit Mobile has more features than Google Voice, and reminds me a bit of VoxOx, which I wrote about a few days ago. This service looks very promising, but, like VoxOx, it isn’t finished yet. I’ve been unable to test it fully, because it doesn’t yet support Sprint cellphones. I also can’t get my contact list to import, either from a CSV file or through Plaxo (the only options Ribbit Mobile supports). I hope to post a fuller review soon.

Try it out, and let us know how Ribbit Mobile works for you.

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This time, let’s look at a business phone system that provides both incoming and outgoing service, plus actual phones. The folks at RingCentral have kindly set me up with one of their packages, the RingCentral Office. They also offer RingCentral Online, an inbound service similar to those listed above, but we’ll focus on the Office package for simplicity.

Options

RingCentral Office has three pricing levels, ranging from a one-line, 10-extension plan for $49.99 per month to an 8-line, unlimited extension plan for $179.99 per month. Each plan comes with various combinations of toll-free and local numbers, as well as toll-free or local dedicated fax numbers. You can also port your existing local or toll-free numbers to RingCentral.

All plans are advertised as having “unlimited minutes,” but (as is apparently the norm among VoIP providers) “unlimited” actually means 5,000 minutes per month; if you go over that, you’ll be charged 3.9 cents/minute. That works out to roughly 2.5 hours of talking per day. Are you and your colleagues on the phone that much? At my company, we aren’t, but some folks might need to be aware of this limit.

What You Get

RingCentral Office includes all of the features that have become standard for Internet phone services. They offer numbers in the U.S., Canada and the UK.

RingCentral offers two types of phones. The phone RingCentral provided to me is a Linksys (now owned by Cisco) SPA942. At first glance, it looks much like a modern business phone. But instead of plugging it into a phone jack, one connects it to the Internet using a standard RJ-45 network cable. If you only have one Internet connection, you can plug the phone into your internet connection, and then plug other devices into the phone. I was pleased with the phone. It’s relatively easy to operate, but strangely, it doesn’t support a headset, something I’ve gotten quite used to.

If you would prefer to use your existing phone equipment, RingCentral also offers an ATA adapter which connects the Internet to regular phones. Since most people aren’t technically-minded enough to want to fiddle with ATAs or configuration of phones, RingCentral ships their equipment pre-configured. All I had to do was plug in the power and the ethernet cable, and the phone was online and ready to use. RingCentral tells me that they provide their phones at or below wholesale cost; a little research confirmed that their equipment prices are quite low.

When you or your colleagues are out of the office, you can use the web site and Windows- or Mac-based softphone application to send, receive and manage calls and messages. One of the unusual features of the softphone app is the ability to view incoming calls and reply with a short message like “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes” without actually answering the phone call. There’s also integration with Outlook’s contact list.

For iPhone users, there’s a native application that provides easy access to voicemail (separate from the iPhone’s built-in voicemail) and faxes. You can also use the iPhone app to make calls showing the Caller ID from your business line — without displaying your iPhone’s telephone number. Similar native applications are being developed for other platforms; I gather that the BlackBerry is next on RingCentral’s list. I didn’t test RingCentral’s software, but I’ve gotten positive feedback from others who’ve used it.

Ordering

When ordering, you’ll be asked to specify the plan you want, the number of lines needed, as well as the number of local and toll-free numbers. You can create a plan that meets your specific needs, and you can change plans at will, since you don’t need to sign a contract. If you return the phones, the return will be subject to a restocking fee.

RingCentral boasts that its services can be priced and purchased directly from its web site without needing to call (although it does offer ordering by phone). While web ordering is certainly possible, I found the website to be less than clear in explaining the differences between the various plans and options. RingCentral tells me that a redesigned site is on the way.

Quality

Of course, in a business environment, call quality is key. In my tests, I (and the people I talked to) agreed that our conversations were clear, loud, and with none of the delay that sometimes plagues services like Google Voice. RingCentral tells me that the service is SIP-based, but that they’ve done significant signal processing so that anyone with a DSL, cable or faster Internet connection should hear excellent sound quality. Dialup connections aren’t recommended, for obvious reasons.

Reliability

RingCentral has been around for several years, but only started offering the Office product in early 2009. According to the company, it is now providing its Office service to over 3,000 organizations of various sizes, including some of over 50 users, with the four-line option is the most popular. They have multiple levels of redundancy and backups, but of course, if your local Internet connection or power goes out, you’ll be unable to use RingCentral, or any other Internet-based phone system.

If you are in the market for a virtual PBX system that provides phone hardware with incoming and outgoing service, you’ll want to look at a number of options, including Accessline Digital Business Phone System, FreedomIQ Hosted PBX, and Phone.com Business Phone, Whatever you choose, RingCentral Office is certainly a strong competitor.

Do you use RingCentral?

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It seems like there was a lot of news coming out of Google this week — here are some highlights:

I share Simon’s enthusiasm in the new Shared Folders feature for Google Docs. There is a reason this has been the most often-requested feature for Docs and I’m thrilled to see it introduced and implemented extremely well.

While not really a productivity app for most users, quite the opposite actually, Google Building Maker is an insanely addictive way to look at your city and contribute 3D building models to Google Earth. Be careful before you click, you could lose hours here.

The Gmail team is always introducing new features in Labs, some useful, others not so much. The new Lab feature, “Got the wrong Bob?” looks to be one of the more useful ones. It attempts to determine if you’ve added the wrong folks to your distribution list based on your past emailing habits. With the auto-complete option it’s easy to accidentally choose the wrong person, this could be a life-saver to keep from sending things to the wrong people. Another handy new Gmail Labs feature, “Google Docs Preview,” lets you preview the contents of a Google document, spreadsheet or presentation right in your Gmail inbox.

I’ve been meaning to write about the Google Squared search functionality for a while now as I don’t think it’s getting near the attention it deserves. In essence, Squared attempts to present search results data in a more concise format — extracting common information from multiple sources for easy comparison in a tabular format. This week brought some major upgrades in both the amount of data returned and the ability to export it out for further analysis.

Since Google Wave invites began rolling out, Google Voice has seemingly been pushed down a notch as the product folks want access to. But if the demand is still there among your friends and family, you’ll soon be able to share the love by inviting them to Google Voice.

Which bit of Google news was most exciting for you this week?

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The concept behind Google Voice is simple: You’re given one phone number that can be configured to ring in multiple places — office, home, on your cell phone or even on an account on the VoIP service Gizmo5. We’ve looked at a number of virtual phone systems, including 3jam and Grasshopper, and while they have many nice features, it’s hard to beat Google Voice’s price — free except for international calls.

Have you received your Google Voice invitation?

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Many web workers are looking at services like Google Voice and 3jam, which allow you to have one business phone number that can be configured to forward to cell phones, to voice mail, or to colleagues if you’re out of the office. Google Voice, however, isn’t really designed for business use, and 3jam has only limited business-oriented features.

If you need more robust features, there are many business-oriented “virtual phone systems.” I’ve recently taken one such product, Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail), for a spin, and was impressed by it. But its cost is higher than Google Voice and 3jam, so you’ll need to see if the feature set is worth it for you.

Grasshopper has quite an extensive feature set; more than I can list here. But some of the most useful are:

• A very slick web interface. Since the system has so many features, it takes a while to find everything, but it’s pretty self-explanatory, and Grasshopper makes good use of tooltips and contextual help to point out and explain features. I found the interface to be a bit slow on occasion, but it’s generally pretty responsive.
• The ability for each company member to have their own extension, with individual greetings, voicemail, web access and notifications by email or text messaging.
• The ability to create “department” extensions that can be forwarded to one or more members of that department. Alternatively, one can create a “call-routing” extension that distributes calls equally across multiple extensions (useful for multi-person sales or support teams).
• The ability to purchase local numbers or toll-free numbers (including “vanity” numbers), as well as to transfer in existing numbers, with minimal setup fees.
• The ability to accept faxes, which can be sent to individual extensions, or to a dedicated fax extension. Faxes can be viewed online, or emailed to you as PDFs.
• The ability to specify your regular business hours, and to route incoming calls differently depending on time of day.
• Control over on-hold music. Grasshopper offers several different types, or you can upload your own (which might include messages as well as music). The default selections aren’t too bad, as hold music goes. You can use different music for each extension, if desired. There doesn’t seem to be a way to turn off hold music entirely, although I imagine that you could upload a blank MP3 file and select that.
• The ability to record your own messages by phone, or to upload MP3 files. Grasshopper will write and record messages for you for $75-$175.

Given Grasshopper’s extensive features, I was surprised that there doesn’t seem to be a way to import contacts into the address book. And it doesn’t have voicemail transcription, like Google Voice and SpinVox do.

I suspect that most web workers will want to look at Grasshopper’s plans and pricing closely. As with most cellphone plans, Grasshopper charges you for incoming minutes. So the $9.95/month “Start” plan, which bundles only 100 minutes per month (with each additional minute billed at 6 cents), will probably not be suitable for most web workers. The “Grow” plan, priced at $49/month, and which is bundled with 2,000 minutes, is probably the minimum that will be useful in a business environment; Grasshopper also offers a more comprehensive plan for $199 a month.

You’ll want to compare Grasshopper with similar services such as Accessline, Virtual PBX, Onebox, RingCentral and others. Plan prices and features vary widely, so you’ll probably be able to find a service that fits your needs and budget. For instance, Accessline (which I’ve used for several years) has a similar service priced at $59.95 per month, but Costco members can get it for $29.95-$34.95. Accessline don’t have all the features that Grasshopper does, and its web interface is pretty clunky by today’s standards. But it has worked well for my company’s needs.

Grasshopper is certainly worth checking out. Its feature set makes it a worthy competitor in a field with many good products.

Have you used Grasshopper? What other virtual phone systems have you used?

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