Internet Phone Service Connects Businesses Affordably

When DVD players were first introduced, they were made by fewer manufacturers and were significantly more expensive than they are now. In a similar way, the price for setting up an Internet-based phone system has been dropping substantially over the last three to four years.

Back then, a small business owner might have been looking at an investment of perhaps $12,000 to get a system set up, plus the cost of the phones, said Dustin White, IT director for IPC Communications Inc. of Bentonville.

At that time, Cisco Systems Inc. was just about the only game in town.

Now, companies like IPC can tackle a business’ network, phone system and communication-related needs for far less.

Instead of paying a flat fee for installation of a phone system and buying each phone, IPC charges a monthly fee. 

When installing a phone system, IPC looks at the company’s average monthly phone bill, and can nearly always match or even beat that rate, White said.

For nearly the same cost, a small business could have more services, including voicemail and e-mail forwarding and drastically lower long-distance expenses.

Contracts for phone service through IPC are typically one year to five years in length, and are usually less expensive the longer the contract is.

Virtual Machines Maximize Hardware

Most small business owners usually update their computer and network systems every three to five years.

This often involves a big investment in new server hardware. Depending on how many computers the server will handle, the price can range from $1,000 on the lower end to several thousand dollars.

But there is another, more affordable option now, said Jeremy Webb, one of the owners of IfWorld Inc. in Fayetteville.

Virtual machines offer a means of using a single piece of hardware to service several computers at once. Essentially, it allows users to turn hardware into software, according to the Web site for VMware Inc., a company that sells virtualization products.

All of the hardware components in a virtual system, including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller, are present, but are software based. The operating system can’t tell the difference between a virtual machine and a real one.

The operating systems are isolated and independent from one another, meaning if a single server is handling several virtual machines and if one of those crashes, the others will be unaffected.

A virtual machine can also run more than one different operating system, Webb said. If a business wanted to run Windows 2000 for its office applications, but used Linux or Redhat for its e-mail and Web services, all of those systems could be accessed on the same virtual machine.

There are many options for setting up virtual machines. Some, such as VMware, are more expensive, while others are free, open-source programs, Webb said.

IfWorld is in the beginning phases of offering virtual machines. Webb estimated that a switch to virtual machines could cut costs of upgrades significantly, perhaps even by as much half.

Webb hasn’t determined pricing structures for setting up virtual machines.