Once you decide that a Hosted PBX system is the best solution for your business, the next critical step is to select a provider.

Here are four critical attributes you should look for in a provider:

1. Business Hosted PBX Should be Their Core Business - Many Hosted PBX providers sell to both the residential market and the business market. Many of today's Hosted PBX providers offer both residential and business service. It is no secret that some companies are losing large sums of money in that market. If you want to see for yourself, then take a look at the annual reports of a few public companies providing residential VOIP service.

2. Experience and Track Record - Let's face it, for most companies VoIP is a relatively new technology. Every day new companies emerge with announcements that they have decided to offer Hosted PBX service. It takes time and hands-on experience to perfect solid, quality-assured business processes for VOIP Hosted PBX engineering, installation, software management, traffic management, network management, and trouble-shooting. At the same time that these processes are being perfected, technical resources must also acquire the skills and experience to deliver quality service to the business market.

3. Network Management - A recent survey conducted by Emprix revealed that more than one third of all VoIP service providers are unable to recognize they have a service quality problem until a customer complaint is received. Before selecting a provider for your VoIP Hosted PBX service make sure they are equipped with the proper Network Management System (NMS) for their VoIP deployments, one that allows their Network Operations and Field Technicians to identify and troubleshoot problems without relying upon a complaint from you to trigger an action on their part. Your Hosted PBX provider should have the capability to proactively monitor detailed call quality statistics including MOS, jitter, latency, and other measurements. State-of-the-Art network monitoring systems have advanced diagnostics linked to an online knowledgebase that automatically provide network technicians with troubleshooting tips. This capability dramatically reduces the effort and time required to identify the root cause of poor quality calls, and more importantly it reduces the time that your business is affected by the trouble.

4. End-to-End Service Responsibility - When considering a company to be your Hosted PBX provider, ask them one simple question: "Where exactly does your service responsibility begin and end?" Most Hosted PBX providers will tell you they provide end-to-end service, but what they really mean is that their responsibility ends at the demarcation point of your building where their service terminates and your inside wiring takes over.

Your life and business will be much better off with a true end-to-end IP provider. That means you'll have single-vendor accountability - from the cabling in the walls to the phones on your desk and the ongoing service and support you need. No finger pointing between vendors with you in the middle.

If you select a VOIP Hosted PBX provider with those four key attributes, your business risk will be minimized and you can sleep much easier at night.

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and it represents one of the most wonderful inventions related to the Internet technology. It has been called the 'voice of the future' by specialists in the field and today it is an extremely advantageous method to make calls over the Internet.

Online, there are practically hundreds of voip service providers that offer various prices and features for voip protocols. Still, for somebody that is new at using the Internet technology and yet is deeply interested in using the Internet for voice conversations, the multitude of offers may seem daunting. This is why specialists have thought the matter through and have come up with professional search engines that can compare voip rates and explain clearly to the prospective customers what the exact benefits of using voip are.

Being updated on a daily basis, the voip search engine can determine for you which are the best voip rates and compare voip prices. Voip rates comparison can be done after you enter the phone destination country, for mobile or landline. In just a short period of time you will receive a carefully organized list with various providers from your country, along with the rates they offer and a specific link to their website. They also explain in short what voip really is and what are the precise requirements of making voip calls, meaning: fast-speed Internet connection, professional voip supplier and a voip phone. In addition, if you want to add yourself another provider to the voip price comparison engine, you can do it anytime you want to.

There is one thing that you have to keep in mind before you decide to use a voip rates comparison. The list may contain plenty of attractive choices but the lowest rates are not always the best choice to make. Do not go for the obvious choice and select the cheapest voip service. You will discover that the features offered are limited and you will have available only certain routes to call. A voip search engine may show you the available rates for diverse service but you have to visit their website for yourself and see what features you are presented with. For example, consider a voip provider that offers advanced features such as: call blocking, call forward, voice mail and conference calling. Make sure that you have full customer support and that you pick out a reliable service.

In the past few years, voip has turned out to be both cost effective and useful for those who were tired of traditional landline telephony. Today, with the help of the Internet one can easily compare voip rates and establish which the most suitable voip provider is. Selecting an appropriate voip provider requires a lot of time and patience, especially when it comes to search engines that offer voip price comparison. Voip may be the cheap and effective communication tool, but cheap is not always synonymous with quality. So, the next time you open your computer and decide to look for a voip rates comparison service, be certain that you go for one that is both reliable and easy to use. You will definitely find some of the most advantageous rates, not to mention prices and a multitude of included features to go along.

There are 3 ways to call internationally:

1. Using your long distance provider.
The most readily available means of calling from US internationally is to pick up your phone, dial the international access code - 011 - then the country code, followed by the area code and the local number. Though this method is perhaps the easiest, it is, unfortunately, the most expensive one. Depending on the country you are calling, the rates could be as high as $3 a minute.

2. Phone cards bought at a retail location.
A cheaper alternative is to use a calling card - a prepaid debit phone card. You purchase a certain amount of minutes that are subtracted with each call you make. A phone card might have either a toll-free or a local access number that you dial from your home phone or perhaps a cell phone. Phone cards can be purchased at a gas station, a grocery store, a warehouse club, retail stores, etc. While using a prepaid phone card bought from a brick-and-mortar retailer will save you money over using your home long distance company, you will still end up paying extra for a little piece of plastic the card is printed on and for the retailer's overhead.

3. Phone cards purchased online.
The cheapest alternative is to buy prepaid phone cards online. This is not a brand new technology, in fact it's been around for over ten years. The phone cards you find online are often from the same companies that sell them in retail locations, but because they are saving money on printing, marketing and delivering those cards to brick-and-mortar locations (and giving retailers their share to pay for their overhead), they offer you the same services at a much lower price.

As we've mentioned before, the sales of online phone cards have been around for years. In these years, only those companies that offered the best quality for the best price have been able to survive the competition. Moreover, certain companies specialize on certain locations; it is best to shop around different international phone card providers to find the best rates. For example, one company might offer the best rate for calling Mexico, but if you are looking for calling card to call Russia, you won't get the most competitive rates.

With that in mind, there are online stores that offer you a variety of calling cards only from those companies that have been around for years and who have been consistent in receiving a positive customer feedback. One such store is Calling Card Calls, representing a Boston-based communications corporation that has been in business since 1996.

Why are the overseas calling cards that consumers see at most on-line retailers not available at any other online location or in-store. This is because many of these on-line calling card merchants have created private label calling cards. Do you ever notice that when you call your local access number for a calling card, the automated message prompts “please enter your pin”, rather than saying something like “Please enter your Bita Calling Card pin”? This is because many of these private label calling cards are run off of the same calling card platforms. Investing in the infrastructure to create your own truly non-shared private label phone card is expensive. High speed T2 connections a VOIP gateway and a calling card platform are all required. To own all of this equipment would cost approximately $30,000. In order to avoid these costs, many online calling card retailers rent this equipment. Below is a picture of how typical prepaid calling card architecture looks: Calling Card System

High speed T2 connections: These carry data to and from the VOIP gateway

VOIP Gateway: allows the incoming calls to be routed to the destination phone numbers via the internet.

Calling Card Platform: A system that manages cards you create. This is the system used to set your per minute rates and carrier routes.

Private label phone cards make their money by charging a premium on the “carrier rates” that they pay for the call. Carrier rates are like wholesale per-minute rates to a certain destination. For example, if the shared calling card infrastructure allows the private label calling card company to select a calling route from continental USA to Pakistan for 2 cents a minute, this same company may advertise this calling card at 4 cents a minute and thus, make 2 cents a minute. But wait…. there’s more: remember those hidden fee’s I talked about in my last post? Well that’s the kicker, calling card companies make a lot of money on the hidden fees. Most calling card platforms allow the private-label card maker to put any number of hidden fee’s on the card. It is for this—unregulated–reason that Phone Card Depot clearly outlines all fee’s on each card.

I haven’t talked much about brand name calling cards in this post, but we refer to these cards as calling cards created by companies that do not retail their own cards. For example, Group of Goldline manufactures many high quality calling cards, but a consumer cannot buy these cards directly from Goldline, you must buy the cards from a variety store or on-line retailer that sells their products. We think it is important for the retailer and manufacturer to remain separate. This is because a bias may develop to push private label cards over cards better suited to the user.

A big problem with most private label calling cards is that the manufacturer is completely unknown to the user and that the cards are pre-paid. Imagine if this manufacturer went bankrupt or even worse: decided to shut down this particular calling card and create a new one. You may be stuck with a pre-paid calling card that no longer works.

The phone card industry has come a long way in the last 10-15 years. It's undergone some major changes, fought a somewhat shaky image and revolutionized the way people stay in touch around the world.

The smart phone card has really taken the calling card to new levels, whether international or local calling and no longer do people need to physically walk into a store and purchase a card; they can do it online from home.

The Convenience Of A Smart Phone Card

One of the biggest advantages is having access to maintenance applications 24 hours a day. When your talk time runs out, you simply go online and and add extra time. For international travelers, the benefits are enormous. International phone cards have been a boon for people who want to stay in touch with family and friends. Instead of paying expensive traditional phone rates, phone cards have given people the opportunity to stay in touch for cents on the dollar.

Did You Know?

Calling rates vary considerably from country to country. Where better telecommunications set ups exist usually means a cheaper calling rate. Shop around for the best prices but always check the fine print before joining a service to avoid any nasty surprises!

Managing Your Smart Phone Card

Being able to manage your card is one thing but one of the attractions is the features associated with it. Customer service is so important these days especially when you are dealing with a faceless business society. It's important to know you are actually doing business with real live people and one of my biggest buy factors is making sure I have access to a customer service representative via the telephone. Preferably, 24 hours a day!

The prepaid smart phone card has joined the technology stakes with a pinless dialling service. To be honest, while phone cards are cheap to use, it was a pain having to punch in a long pin number followed by country and area codes and then the phone number. Not anymore, pinless dialling allows the operator to register his or her phones and then when they make a call, the account is instantly recognized and voila, the call is made.

The Hidden Fees Factor

Another smart phone card benefit is you know up front about any hidden fees. There are none. This is a problem with not just the phone card industry, but other areas of business as well. It's up to the consumer to make sure they are not slugged with additional costs.

The prepaid smart phone card is just that...prepaid. You only want to be paying for your talk time. You don't want your minutes eaten away by extra costs such as maintenance or connection fees. Despite the guarantees there will be no hidden costs, for peace of mind, check the small print.

When you go to a store to purchase a prepaid phone cards online or over the counter, you will quickly see that there are thousands of cards available. If that is your first time buying and have no or very little idea what you are looking for, you wil be very overwhelmed. So, how do you choose the right phone card for your individual needs?

Begin by asking yourself the following questions, or go directly to the Basic Usage & Suggestions portion of this page. You may also want to consult the Glossary of Terms.

Questions to ask prior to buying a prepaid calling card

1) What rate does the card offer to my calling destination (typically shown as ¢/min)? Confirm rates before you call and remember that some rates may fluctuate. Also, calls made to international cell phones are generally billed at a higher rate.

2) Do the rates vary depending on the hour of the day?

Be sure that the rate you receive remains constant throughout the entire day. Unless otherwise stated, the advertised rate should be constant no matter what time of day.

3) What is the Minute Billing or Minute Rounding schedule for the card?

Rounding (minute billing) refers to the increments in which phone calls are billed. For example, with 3 minute rounding, a 4 minute phone call would be billed as a 6 minute phone call. With 1 minute rounding, the same 4 minute call would be billed as a 4 minute call.

4) Will I be charged for calls that do not connect?

Know in advance if you will be charged for attempting a call that does not connect. Please confirm this with the carrier by contacting their customer service department.

5) Are there any additional fees or taxes?

Some phone cards include additional fees and/or taxes. Adding these fees allows carriers and retailers to to keep their advertised rates extra low. You can avoid many types of additional fees and taxes by using all of your minutes in one call. Remember… fees and taxes effectively reduce the number of minutes you’ll receive.

Further, not all phone card retailers are created equal. Many will not disclose all fees and taxes, so be sure to ask before you buy. A retailer using best business practices will reveal all known taxes and fees to you up front.

7) Can I reach a customer service operator 24 hours a day?

Being able to get a hold of your phone card’s customer service department is important because they will be able to help you with any unforeseen issues that may arise at any time during the day.

8) Does the phone card have an expiration date?

If yes, any remaining minutes on the card past this date will be lost.

9) Does the merchant/retailer offer any form of guarantee?

Most prepaid phone card companies do not offer any guarantee on their products. There are , however, a handful of companies that do. A guarantee will further ensure that you get the minutes you pay for.

10) Does the company I am researching appear to be trustworthy?

Look for signs of generating trust: Visible phone numbers, privacy policy, BBB membership, secure transactions, warranties and guarantees.

11) How will I receive my prepaid phone card after purchase?

Typically, if purchasing over the Internet, phone cards will be presented to via email or right on screen pending a successful transaction and acceptance by your bank. Some companies may send you a physical card, but in most cases the delivery occurs by email or right on your screen.

Basic usage & suggestions

1) Before traveling, confirm that your pin is valid. To do this, dial the US access number and enter your pin—make sure not to make any connections so that you will not reduce the balance. Confirm with the retailer and/or carrier that service is available and that the access number is correct.

2) You may be able to get extra minutes if you utilize a local access number (not available on all calling cards or in all regions). If available, the number may be provided when you dial the toll free access number included with your pin and/or online—if the pin was purchased on a website. You may also be able to confirm this information with the carrier of your calling card.

3)Be sure the site you are ordering from is secure. Look for an image or message indicating this, such as SSL, Secure Transactions, Thawte Certified, etc.

4) When choosing a card that does carry additional fees and/or taxes to get the lowest rate possible, consider purchasing smaller denominations so that you can use all of the minutes in one phone call. This will allow you to get MAXIMUM minutes as you avoid scheduled fees and/or taxes. Fees and taxes will not begin until your “first use” of the card.

5) If making long calls, be sure that your card does not have a long call fee associated with it. Some cards will tax you if you make calls that last longer than a predetermined amount of time. Some carriers add in this fee to keep people from using a card in one call. NOTE: This type of fee is not as prevalent as it once was.

6) All cards carry an FCC imposed payphone fee—this fee averages anywhere from 49¢ to $1.00 every time you use a when calling from a payphone. This fee also applies when making calls from other countries if using a calling card sold by a U.S. company.

Prepaid calling cards extend well beyond the card that a customer buys. Why? The processes of getting the minutes to the customer actually start with the customer. When someone is enrolled in a monthly plan, there is typically unused minutes that do not get used. But since the phone company has already sold the minutes, and do not carry over the minutes (in some cases, the customer will still get rollover minutes, but they are in fact renewed minutes). Therefore, when phone companies have their extra minutes, instead of losing money and throwing away the minutes, they choose to turn around and sell the minutes, so that they do not lose the money. This is where the minutes come for prepaid calling cards.

Many people like to think of the unused minutes as unsold seats in a plane. When an airline has open seats in a certain flight not being sold, they turn around and sell the seats for a lower price. While the airline is not making any money off of this, they are instead losing less money. So, someone has the opportunity to get a plane ticket to the same location as someone else, but for a cheaper price.

Prepaid phone card minutes are used in the same respect. The phone company will be losing more money with the unused minutes if they were to not do anything. So, they choose to lose less money, and sell the unused minutes in bulk. Then, the phone card companies buy the minutes, and place them on the phone cards for another price. The phone card companies are making the most money in the long run, because they are able to buy the unused minutes from the phone companies and then sell them for another price, one that will make them money. If the phone card company were to sell the phone cards at the same rate at which they bought the unused minutes, it would be difficult to make any money, let alone pay for their own service charges.

The phone card companies will keep a lower calling rate, but they add on some fees and service charges that make up for the costs of the lower calling rate. Sometimes these fees will cover their services, and other times it is to get more pennies from someone’s pocketbook. There are some calling card companies that will minimize their service fees, but they often have the higher per minute calling rates.

Calling card can be found in many places. They are in convenience stores, airports, and other places that have high traffic. Phone cards are sold with different minute allotments and at different rates. A person can purchase calling cards with a certain amount of time on the card. Prepaid calling cards have the minutes already paid for, so as they are getting used, a person can see how much time they have left on the calling card. Once the minutes that were purchased on the calling card are used up, the calling card can be thrown away.

In just the last ten years, the calling card industry has exploded into a four billion dollar per year business with an estimated 500 million cards sold annually. The cards are available just about everywhere today. They can be purchased in most stores including gas stations and convenience stores. You can also purchase them online. There is a wide variety of rates and services offered and the wise consumer needs to have a basic understanding of them in order to find the best rates.

Most people think that this is an easy thing to do. The price per minute is usually featured prominently on the card and its advertising. However, the problem is that the price per minute does not necessarily reflect the best rate. There are several surcharges that can be added to the cost of a call. In fact, the general rule is that the lower the per minute charge, the higher the surcharges. Some calling cards have a large connection fee that is charged for each call. This connection charge alone is enough to bring the actual per minute cost much higher. Another surcharge that comes as a big surprise too often is the pay phone surcharge. This is a charge as much as 50 cents more for each call made from a pay phone.

Many phone cards have an International call surcharge. This can be as high as $3.00 per call. Other surcharges include "taxes", which can be as high as 25% and a weekly maintenance fee. The weekly maintenance fee can sap the remaining minutes in your card if you do not use them quickly. Another hidden charge is rounding. Although most calling cards will round calls up to the closest minute, some use six minute rounding so that a one minute call will be charged as six minutes.

The way to select a card is to have a good understanding of how you are going to use the phone, and where and when your calls are going to be made. Armed with this information, you can assess which surcharges will impact you and which ones will not make any difference. For example, cards with low per minute rates and high surcharges are usually better for calls that run from 10 to 15 minutes or longer. If your calls generally run less than 10 minutes, the high minute, low surcharge car is better. You should make sure that you receive all the information on how the card is used, how it is recharged, what its surcharges and limitations are, and when it expires. If you have trouble finding this information you should be looking for another card.

A prepaid phone card is a tremendous advance in communication, and a cheap prepaid phone card can save much money in emergencies or while traveling. The prepaid international phone card has brought the world closer together. It has made communication better and safer, but do not be afraid to shop around for the right card. They are not all the same, and the money saved makes a bit of research a wise investment.