Managing Your Travel Business:
Phone Options
by John Hawks

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• Vonage.com: "I'm happy with their service," says Ely Cristobal, who gets his phone, fax, and toll-free services from this company. Mary Lou Marchand has three separate phone lines with Vonage, which is "very reliable and inexpensive, and we were able to use our existing numbers," she reports.
  
  
• Vocalocity: As a former purchasing manager, Beverly Solosky compared many services before picking this company to provide her main phone number, a toll-free number with unlimited incoming and outgoing call minutes, two full extensions with voicemail, another voicemail-only extension, and a fax-to-email number. You can record an operator answering your phone and then options that the caller may select. Beverly gets all of this service for about $130 a month.
  
  
• MagicJack.com: Carolyn Bracchi dumped her land line four years ago to use her cell phone and this Internet phone service, and she's very happy with the results.
  
  
• Cable and telecom bundled packages: Many OSSN agents use phone service that's part of a package sold by local cable and telecom providers. These packages may also include cable TV and Internet access, among other services. Adrienne Mitra uses a land line with unlimited long distance offered by her cable company (she uses the line for inbound faxes, too). Mary June Williams pays $60 per month for a Verizon "business bundle" that includes a long-distance calling package (she has 13 two-line phones around her house, so that she can answer from anywhere).
  
  
• Skype.com: Camilla Mork uses this Internet-based phone service, along with a Verizon land line and eFax.com.
  
  
• Birch.com: After having trouble with BellSouth, Roxana Rodas-Pais opted to switch to this provider for a monthly $62 package that includes her business phone line, 800 minutes of long distance, local calling, and extra features such as caller ID/call waiting/call forwarding.
  
  
• RingCentral.com: Brad La Nasa raves about this service, which gives him the ability to make calls, route calls to other people, set up a "Call Me" button on his Web site, and handle other phone tasks. "I used Ring Central when I was in Argentina and Uruguay last year," he says, and his clients had no idea where he was calling from.
  
  
• CallinEurope.com: Erika Christ owns an international cell phone from this service, which provides her with great rates when she's traveling in Europe (her main area of focus).
  
  
• TollFreeMax.com: Several agents suggested this service to set up toll-free numbers for your home-based travel business.
  
  
• Blackberry Curve: Bobbie Murphy recently invested in this cell phone and updated her monthly billing to allow unlimited email and text (she can pay an extra $20 for these services if she's out of the country). She advises watching those charges, though, particularly if you're on a cruise ship.
  
  
• GotVMail.com: Amy Dismukes reports that she's very happy with her local and toll-free service through this company.
  
  
• MyFax.com: Deb Shilaos uses this service to send and receive faxes.
  
  
• Packetel.com: You can save money receiving inbound faxes, Gail Holcomb suggests, by using this service ($47 for one year). She's had no trouble receiving faxes in .pdf, .doc, or .tif format in her email accounts.

Thanks to the many OSSN agents who sent in their phone suggestions!

(Credit: Miguel Duran; stock photos)