Virtual Phone System

It seems the latest buzz word these days is "virtual". Whether it's virtual computing, virtual networks, or some other virtual, this is supposed to be better than the actual thing that is being virtualized. One virtual we started using here at Knowles-McNiff is a virtual phone system by RingCentral, and it is working pretty good for our purposes.

The system is from RingCentral, and it works through your broadband connection. The audio is digitized and sent over the network similar to streaming media (MP3, WAV, etc.). The phones you use are made for this type of network traffic and the audio is quite good. People on the other end had no idea I was talking to them through the Internet.

You can also use your computer's speaker and microphone to create a soft phone. This is what I use at my desk, and it gives you the ability to see the calls you are about to get by using a call controller. It gives you the ability to forward the calls to another extension or to voicemail. The soft phone is free as a download from RingCentral.

Along with the ability to make and receive calls over the Internet, you also get several extensions that you can assign to other phones. These phones can be cell phones, other RingCentral phones, or any other type of phone. This gives you big system features for a low price. You have a complete PBX system without the actual equipment.

In addition, you can forward your extension to another phone, any phone, as long as it can be dialed. You can configure your extension to ring one phone, and if it doesn't answer forward the call to another phone. If that phone doesn't answer in the configured number of rings, you can have RingCentral take a message.

In a world that is becoming increasingly virtual, RingCentral stands out as a quality service that is also more productive than its physical competition. For a free trial, go to RingCentral.com.