Category: VoIP Service

VoIP call rates and line subscriptions

Siemens Gigaset C470IP – Registering a Handset

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date November 18, 2014

C470IP VoIP Phone System

C470IP is a very simple IP PBX with basic VoIP functionality however it can connect up to 5 additional handsets. Multiple handsets can be registered to be used with a single VoIP phone number (endpoint) or multiple endpoints.

Configuring a C470IP System

Most IP PBX’s can be configured by entering the IP address of the device. An IP Address looks something like 192.168.0.2 and it’s just a location for a device that is located on your local network.

To get the IP address of your Siemens C470IP system, press the blue “Paging Button” that normally gets each of the handsets ringing. You’ll see the IP Address displayed on the handset.

Type that address into your browser and the normal password is 0000. You can then log in to the admin area, setup phone numbers, handsets and manage how calls are handled – things like which phone number rings on which handset.

Handset registration process

When you get another handset to use with your system you can register it using the following procedure:

Turn on additional handset

On the phone menu, Navigate to Settings > Handset > Register H/Set

Enter your system PIN, (default is “0000”)

Press and hold INTERCOM button on base station until handset is registered (it will show an icon like the phone is ringing).

Great for Virtual Assistants

You can then go into your IP PBX admin and rename the handset to something that makes more sense to you. For example if you operate a home based business as a virtual assistant you can have one line for home and a couple others for your own business and any business you’re answering calls for.

We’ve had quite a bit of interest from virtual assistants who are using these phone systems because they are cheap and enable them to take advantage of cheap voip rates and have some great features like group pickup, assisted call transfer and can be combined with the VoIP service features like voicemail-to-email.

Marketing Numbers News Small Business VoIP FAQ's virion business voip phone systems VoIP Service VoIP Support

It’s Clear You Want to Port Away

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date August 27, 2014
1 Comment on It’s Clear You Want to Port Away

Phone Numbers are no longer attached to your local Telstra exchange

port your landline number away from Telstra for VoIP business telephone systems

Many companies are moving to VoIP and enjoying the benefits of a digital telephone service and the most obvious benefit is to be able to take your phone number anywhere you want. In the olden days your telephone number was linked to the copper wire that comes into your home or office, but these days a phone number is virtual – it doesn’t matter where you are. Many larger companies have a different phone number for each state that are all answered in a central location. These days phone numbers are completely separate to the cabling that carries the voice signal.

Mobile and Landline Phone Numbers

There was a time in the early days of mobile phones where mobile phone carriers could keep a customer for many years because we didn’t want to change our phone numbers – changing carriers meant you had to change your mobile phone number! Many small business owners still believe that they need to change their landline phone number if they move their office location but that is not the case with VoIP – you can take your number with you now.

Port Away

When you move your phone number from one carrier to your new carrier it’s called Porting Away and it happens quite often. In our experience most request to port away involve those customer who want to move away from Telstra (mainly because they are a huge supplier and have most of the landline customers) and those carriers who tied customers into long-term and expensive plans (we won’t name names).

If you are interested in porting away from your existing phone number carrier just use the PAF (Porting Application Form) from our VoIP Support site.

Wholesale Account Number

When you Port Away the application form asks for the account number for the phone number you want to port away and many customers believe this number appears on the monthly phone bill, but it doesn’t. Often you’ll need to call the leaving carrier, let them know that you are porting away from them and need to get the wholesale account number for the phone number you want to port away. Once we have this information the whole process now takes half the time it use to.

Special Offer for Small Businesses

If you are ready to move your telephone system to VoIP and start saving money but also getting all the features of a digital phone system, visit our VoIP Partner website and learn how you can get a VoIP Phone System for $1 per month.

Tags cheap calls, number portability, number porting, port away, porting away from telstra, voip, voip phone system

News virion business voip phone systems VoIP Features VoIP Service

CLI or Calling Line Identifiers

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date November 20, 2013

On our new Cumulus VoIP Call Plan we provide CLI overstamping at no additional cost so everyone who calls you back calls your main switch number – it’s a great way to manage a callers experience.

With CLI we are able to “overstamp” each of your Direct Indial Numbers with your main telephone number so that call recipients see your main phone number and return the call using that, rather than the direct indial number. You also have the ability to hide your number. This service is available on some plans, please check our VoIP Plans for more details.

Marketing Numbers News Small Business Phone System Plans Telephone System Features VoIP Service

The Importance of Tracking How People Hear About Your Business

Post author By Digital Marketing
Post date October 15, 2013

Marketing numbers and call analytics We recently spoke to Angela, a freelance writer, to share her experiences working with some of the largest publishing and advertising businesses in Australia. If you are interested in media and more importantly how large and well known companies measure the success of their advertising dollar, you’ll find this quite interesting.

For a spell, I left the media industry to work as a research analyst where I analysed the efficiency of various advertising and marketing strategies for a host of clients, such as Qantas, Westpac, Coca Cola, the NSW Government, and so on.

Though my chief objective was to determine things like whether a thirty second spot in Packed to the Rafters would deliver a client’s TARP goals, time and again, I was asked how a client could tell if that thirty-second spot had resulted in more sales; something I was unqualified to speculate on.

To isolate this information, marketers would often suggest that clients advertise different products or special offers in each different medium they used, and then analyse sales data to see which medium outperformed the other. But becoming more popular is the use of a Voice Over Internet Protocol service (VoIP).

Unlike the former, which cannot control for natural selection—a person going into a supermarket and selecting Arnotts Tim Tams over another Arnotts product due merely to product placement, impulse or pre-existing bias—a VoIP rules out the possibility of natural selection.

Using different telephone numbers in different advertising mediums, VoIP allows you to efficiently and accurately track what marketing messages your enquiries are originating from; and importantly, a VoIP also isolates which advertising medium delivers more call-to-action.

You may use a variety of mediums—television, print, online, radio, outdoor—but of those mediums, which one actually drives a person to pick up the phone? What was the strongest marketing message? VoIP answers all of those questions with a simple text file detailing every phone call and the marketing number they originated from.

VoIP delivers something that as a research analyst I could never definitively answer: accountability. It’s true that VoIP is no substitute for a good marketing campaign, but when used in conjunction with your marketing strategies it offers a kind of clarity that TARPs and circulation numbers simply cannot.

To include Virion’s VoIP service in your next marketing campaign, sign up here.

News VoIP Call Rates

Mobile calls for free?

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date February 17, 2012

Someone asked us the other day if they can use VIRION VOIP to make calls to mobiles for free. Does any one else have the same question? We’ve found the next best thing! Connect your mobile phone to your phone system.

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch and the same applies to phone call costs…phone calls cost money. Whether you are a wholesaler, aggregator, retailer or customer, there is a cost per call. Why? Because the mobile carriers paid billions in licence fees to operate a mobile network in Australia. The only variable is “how do you charge”.

If you are looking for mobile call cost savings there is some good news.

Do you own a mobile phone? Does it have BlueTooth connectivity? Are you on a great business plan or a CAPPED plan?

If your answer is yes, then the new DX800 Gigaset small business telephone system from Siemens enables any handset on your phone system to call out using your mobile. In other words you can still use your phone system handsets but be speaking on the office mobile phone.

This also means that calls coming into that mobile phone can now be answered by anyone in the office too. Now that is a handy way to save money isn’t it?

Take a look at the other great reasons to get a Siemens DX800 small business phone system through VIRION’s partner network.

News virion business voip phone systems

45% reduction in calls to mobile numbers

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date January 13, 2012

Sometimes we make announcements at the virion business grade VoIP blog to inform our customers and prospective customers about new services or price reductions.

Today we reduced the price of calls from our VoIP service to Australian mobile numbers. The rate has been reduced to 18c per minute and customers should be aware that this rate is available with no other minimum commitments, including:

There is no flag fall on each call
Calls are only charged by the second, so if you only speak for 10 seconds, you only pay for 10 seconds
You get this rate without having to go on a “bundled” service

For the best price for a completely new Siemens VoIP telephone system, with full onsite support, remote setup support and fantastic call rates, visit our VoIPPartners.com.au website.

This price reduction applies to all customers on the VoiceCloud Platform.

News virion business voip phone systems VOIP Equipment VoIP Features VoIP Service

Request a Quote for VoIP phone system

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date February 8, 2011

Telephone systems in general are technical products to understand so rather than scratch your head and look at all the available IP telephony equipment and what they can do, tell us a little about your business and your requirements (this will take you less than 15 minutes) and one of our consultants will contact YOU to recommend a solution for your business.

You can then study the VoIP telephone system equipment recommended and understand more about how the phone system will be installed, the costs and the extra new features of VoIP.

Request a Quote now.

News Small Business VoIP FAQ's Telephone System Features

Telstra Call Forward Immediate, on Busy and No Answer

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date October 13, 2010
1 Comment on Telstra Call Forward Immediate, on Busy and No Answer

Telstra Call Forward

Call Forward is a functionality that enables you to have incoming calls diverted to alternative numbers on situations where you are away from your phone, are busy on your phone or are not in your office.

This functionality was seen as a break through a decade ago, but with the onset of VoIP and digital telephone systems this type of functionality is now available via most VoIP Cloud PBX Admin Portals and you can control more aspects of your VoIP Business Telephone System by logging into a cloud-based administration area.

Porting Away from Telstra

VoIP Business Telephone Systems have a LOT of features that you can configure yourself without the services of an expensive telephone or IT Consultant. Many customers have signed up to these Hosted Business Telephone Systems and ported away from Telstra to save money. By Porting away from Telstra you get to

Keep your phone number (no matter where you move in the world!),
Pay low VoIP rates for the number and calls, PLUS
You can take your number with you wherever you go!

Call diversion is a function that Telstra customers can use to divert calls to their new VoIP Business Phone System until they are ready to port their number away from Telstra and we’ve written the basic instructions for how to do it below.

VoIP Business Phone System on 14 day FREE Trial

Trial a VoIP Business Phone System for your office and take advantage of great advanced call handling features like those listed below, we can help you with a VoIP Phone System on a 14-day FREE Trial. Here are some of the most desired features:

Voicemail to Email,

Auto Attendant (IVR)

VoIP Service Admin Portal, and more

The VoIP Business Telephone Systems voicemail-to-email service allows you to create your own greeting and receive messages to your own email address, no matter where you are. Telstra normally charge for their voicemail (messagebank) service, but the VoIP Business Telephone System includes this feature for each VoIP phone number.

Turning Call Forward On and Off

Below is some information we found to help our customers with the codes required to activate and deactivate the Telstra Call Forward services: Remember! Do not use brackets, but do use the asterisk (*) and hash (#) keys.

How to turn Call Forward on

Here are the basics:

The easiest way to turn on Call Forward is to call 1#, then say “Turn on Call Forward” and listen to the instructions. Alternatively, follow the instructions below to turn on each type of Call Forward.

To turn on Call Forward Immediate (all calls):
Press * 2 1 (phone number) #

To turn on Call Forward Busy:
Press * 2 4 (phone number) #

To turn on Call Forward No Answer:
Press * 6 1 (phone number) #
You can also turn on Call Forward No Answer and specify how many seconds before the call is forwarded:
Press * 6 1 (phone number) * (time in seconds) #

Cheap Business Telephone Systems from $1 per month

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Did you know that you can have the power of a professional business telephone system and the capability to turn on features like Call Forward, Do Not Disturb etc from your VoIP Handsets?You can also have all of your team connected as part of the one business phone system even if they are spread out across Australia (or even the world)?Learn about the features of the CloudPBX..[/box]

How to turn Call Forward off

Here are the basics:

The easiest way to turn off Call Forward is to call 1#, then say “Turn off Call Forward” and listen to the instructions.

Alternatively, follow the instructions below to turn off each type of Call Forward. You can also find out how to turn Call Forward on .

To turn off Call Forward Immediate (all calls):
Press # 21 # on your keypad

To turn off Call Forward Busy:
Press # 24 # on your keypad

To turn off Call Forward No Answer:
Press # 61 # on your keypad

Turn off Call Forward Selected Callers:
Press # 92 # on your keypad

Turn off Call Forward Set the Time:
Press # 16 # on your keypad

Typical small business call flow scenarios

We’ve put together some call flow diagrams to make it easier to choose your ideal business telephone system customisation. Combined with $1 per month for a phone system you’ll have professional features, setup quickly and at a fantastic cheap rate. See the common business telephone system setups..

Cisco, Yealink and Siemens Handsets

Feature-rich and professional these global brands will make your business look and feel professional and they’ll come with the power to manage the calls in your small business.

See the different VoIP Business Telephone Handsets..

Requesting a Quotation is Quick and Easy

If you want to get started with VoIP, Digital and Hosted Business Telephone Systems but not sure how to get started, tell us a little bit about your circumstances and request a quote and we’ll get something back to you quickly.

You’ll be able to trial every aspect of the business telephone system, and see call rates and connectivity options.

Tags call forward, Telstra Call Forward

News Small Business VoIP FAQ's Voice Codecs Voice Quality

Voice Codecs for VoIP Business Telephone Systems

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date August 21, 2010

The Right Voice Codecs Need to be Configured

The upload speed of your broadband Internet connection is critical to ensure good quality VoIP conversations on a VoIP Business grade Telephone System. There are two main voice codecs used for voice conversations using VoIP; G.711 and G.729, with G.711 being the best quality (ideal for businesses with Tier 1 grade internet) but also taking up the most bandwidth requirements.

This diagram from the Cisco website shows the different VoIP codecs with packet information and bandwidth requirements.

From the Cisco website

How Many Concurrent Call Conversations?

If you do a speed test of your Broadband Internet service you’ll see your upload speed and by using the table above you’ll be able to roughly gauge how many concurrent conversations you can have using a VoIP telephone system and your current Internet service.

When companies grow they’ll often have two broadband Internet services, once for data and one for voice and this ensures that the voice quality remains consistent regardless if your staff are transferring a lot of data or watching cat videos on Youtube!

Another very important aspect of your Internet services is to have it optimised so that voice traffic is given priority over data traffic. They call this Quality of Service or QoS.

VoIP Business Telephone System Handsets

VoIP handsets enable your small business to take advantage of the functionality and flexibility of a hosted CloudPBX. These handsets can be located in remote offices like staff or contractors homes or even interstate or international offices.

Learn more about Business Telephone System Handsets

Business Telephone System Call Flow Scenarios

Business Telephone System Call Flow Configurations - smallest Do you want to see how most people handle the calls with their business telephone system? These call flow scenarios enable you to quickly choose from the most common choices and can help you get a good solution quickly.

Business Telephone System Scenarios

[button link=”http://virion.com.au/services/cloudpbx-hosted-pbx/” bg_color=”#0e6bf5″]CloudPBX Features[/button] [button link=”http://virion.com.au/servicesupport/request-a-quote/”]Request a Quote[/button] [button link=”http://virion.com.au/order-cheap-phone-system-now/” bg_color=”#0cba06″]Sign Up Now[/button]

Tags call quality, codecs, voice codecs, voip codecs, voip phone system, voip phones, voip quality

News Small Business VoIP FAQ's

What is a Fair Use Policy?

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date August 4, 2010

Are you looking for unlimited?

Telephony, website hosting and other services that are a commodity in today’s business world are very competitive and very technical. There are aspects of these services you use but might not understand in the beginning but they make more sense as you get to know them.

Most people love to hear the word “unlimited” because it means they can get everything they want without worrying about the price they pay for it. On the face of it you might think to yourself, yep, I’d love to take advantage of that, but what you find is that most customers use the amount an ordinary person would use. Unlimited is really a way of saying use as much as you want and don’t ever worry about it.

If we really want to get technical we would ask ourselves “who is an ordinary person”? The definition of an ordinary person in Wikipedia is the man on the Clapham Omnibus (interest read) and this ordinary person is often better off just paying for what they use. Let’s see why.

So, you want unlimited do you?

Would you be happy to share that unlimited with your neighbours?
What would happen if you and your neighbours consumed “unlimited” amounts?
Would there be enough for everyone?
Would it be fast enough?
Would the quality be good enough?
Would the supplier end up putting limits on it?

It’s rare to see anything truly unlimited. There is a reason that most “unlimited” services have a Fair Use Policy.

Where can you find this Fair Use Policy?

If a company wants you to agree with a Fair Use Policy then they should have one, right? In my search for Fair Use Policies, searched for the Fair Use Policy of an Australian subsidiary of a large United States telephone company. Do you think I could find it? When I finally noticed the Fair Use Policy link, it took me to the Terms and Condition page. On this Terms and Condition page there was a link called Fair Use Policy, but it took me back to their Terms and Condition which stated that they had a Fair Use Policy and that it was subject to change from time to time. After a few weeks I conducted the same search to find a separate link for the Terms and Condition and the Fair Use Policy, but they both had the same writing on the page. It was the Terms and Conditions! I guess most answers are all in the details.

Most Fair Use Policies state a maximum amounts,be it storage size, number of minutes, number of calls, call duration etc. A good example is a large US based Website hosting company our organisation uses. They offer 750GB of storage space with each website! Fantastic! I logged into the administration area and created an email accounts 4GB of storage so I would never run out, but guess what happened? One of our users, who doesn’t download all his emails onto his own computer, built up 600MB of emails in his email account. As a result the website hosting company de-activated his account and sent him and me an email to say there had been a violation of their Terms of Service (TOS). After digging through this TOS agreement (which you agree to when you sign up), there it was… a limitation of 400MB per email account.

How fair is your Fair Use Policy?

These days most Terms and Conditions can change “from time to time” and they often do. It made us ask these questions:

“Can you rely on unlimited if it is defined by a Fair Use Policy that can change from “time to time”?
Is this policy designed to capture customers while giving the company the option to change the game when and as they choose?
Do you want to use a service that could be diminished by heavy users?
If you promote an “Unlimited” service, but specify limits in your Fair Use Policy, can you really call it unlimited?
If you promote a Fair Use Policy that does not specify usage, do you really have a Fair Use Policy?

I hope this article has helped you understand a little more about Fair Use Policies. If you are like me, you may prefer to get good calling rates and pay only for what you use, which may be less than unlimited.

Tags Fair Use, Fair Use Policy, unlimited calls

News Small Business VoIP FAQ's

What is the best VoIP modem router

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date July 7, 2010

Neerav Bhatt is one of Australia’s most successful bloggers and he has been involved with computers for many years, including the new area of social media. Neerav write a regular blog on technology and other interesting and varied topics and we came across this blog about the best modem/router to use for VoIP: http://bit.ly/a85zKS

You may hear some people say that the quality of VoIP is poor. It is good to realise that the important issues really surround the quality of your broadband internet plan, quality of your modem and the Quality of Service (QoS) settings on your modem and network.

Click Here to sign up for a 30 day trial account with two telephone lines and see just how well it can work.

Tags modem/router, voip, Voip modem

virion business voip phone systems

Believe in the future

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date June 6, 2010

Every part of our world evolves because we want to be better. The Internet and new VoIP technology gives your business access to new features and flexibility like voicemail to email, the ability to take your phone number with you (anywhere), the ability to direct calls where they need to go and so much more. The list of features grows every year and we want to give you access to these fantastic features when they become available, but if you just want to take advantage of discounted VoIP call costs we are happy to provide.

Tags business voip, voip

News Small Business VoIP FAQ's

Your old Telstra number

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date March 29, 2010

porting of telstra numbers

Using your Telstra number is easy. We simply setup a call diversion immediate on your Telstra phone number to your main virion indial number. This means that everyone who calls your normal number will be answered on your new Voice over IP phones. There is a cost for the diversion for each incoming call, but this only temporary before we transfer your Telstra number to virion and you start paying half price for it.

Transferring a number to virion is called “Porting” and its a process that can take 3-4 weeks to complete, but once its complete you will no longer be paying high monthly rates through Telstra for your phone service.

virion business voip phone systems VoIP Call Rates

Low VoIP calling rates

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date March 29, 2010

speak more for less money

virion uses the highest business grade vodecs and whitelist international carriers to ensure that along with cheap call rates, your business has the highest voice quality. These rates are approximately half of Telstra’s normal retail call rates which represent a huge saving. Prices do not include GST and are available on the Stratus Call Plan with Direct Debit authority.

Calls to local numbers	10c untimed
Calls to national landlines	10c untimed
Calls from extension to extension	FREE
Calls to Australian mobile numbers	18c per minute billed by the second and no flag-fall
Popular International Destinations Charged by the minute	China 3.9c Singapore 2.9c UK 2.9c USA 2.9c New Zealand 2.9c Hong Kong 2.9c Taiwan 2.9c Canada 2.1c

virion International_calling_rates full list

Your Internet connection, network configuration and equipment influences call quality.

Tags international rates, skype, skype like rates, skype rates, voip call rates

virion business voip phone systems

telephone PBX setup

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date March 29, 2010

business voip telephone system setup

There are some fundamental questions that need to be answered whenever a new Business Telephone System PBX is setup. This includes information like which phone rings first when a caller dials your main number and whether you’d like one main voicemail message for all extensions or different messages for different extensions.

Other things to consider are:

If the reception phone doesn’t answer the call in time, where should it be routed to.
Would you like more than one phone to ring when the main line is called.
Which DID (phone number) would you like to allocate to each person.
Would you like to have abbreviated dialling so it’s easy to transfer calls from extension to extension.

You CloudPBX is configured and then your VoIP handsets are configured to work with the business grade VoIP service.

Request a Quote

VoIP Line Subscriptions VoIP Service

Lines, extensions and subscriptions

Post author By Steve Slisar
Post date March 29, 2010

lines, extensions or subscriptions

The term ‘line’ is usually associated with a copper wire coming into your office. This line normally comes with the functionality to allow you to make voice calls and each one comes with its own “telephone number”. With a VoIP Telephone system PBX the meaning is different.

Because you are using your Broadband Internet access to “transport” your calls, the term line (also known as a channel, extension or Subscription) is now used to describe the ability to “handle” more than one concurrent conversation (at the same time). It also includes features like the ability to:

Put a call on hold
Transfer calls
Have music on hold and transfer
Allow for Direct indial to each extension (saves having to route the call through reception)
Separate voicemail for each extension
Voicemail to email

Every subscription comes with a Direct Indial Number (called a DID). You can choose whether to make these numbers known to your customers (have them call you directly, bypassing Reception), or have every call go through reception before they get to you.

A great feature of VoIP business grade Telephone systems is that each Subscription with voicemail can have the voicemail messages emailed to the user of that extension.The fee per extension is $14.95 (inc GST)

Get a VoIP phone system now with an Instant Trial Application