01225 571 707

We run a tight ship here and don't like wasting money. Having recently taken on the expense of a new office we are keen to keep our outgoings as low as we can. It was clearly bonkers then to even consider paying for the installation and line rental on a BT phone into the office... VoIP is a clear winner!

We tried out 'grown up' business VoIP with a £3.60 per month contract and a Bath phone number through Click2Scan's VoIP reseller account using the eyeBeam VoIP client from Counterpath which is the best VoIP software client I have come across in recent years. Even better than using the eyeBeam client I managed to configure my own Nokia E71 as a VoIP handset. Sadly we share an 8Mbps (runs <5Mbps) BT broadband line and the call quality was dreadful. Since it's not our line to complain about we had to come up with another plan.

It seems that not all VoIP is alike. Strangely, even though our VoIP testing showed that there was lots of latency, patchy performance and poor QoS on the line Skype still works remarkably well. Business users seem to look down their nose at Skype but we don't take much notice of that. We decided to take the plunge and run with Skype for at least 3 months, this is where we've spent our money:

• A £2.95 per month subscription to give unlimited calls to UK landlines and Skype voice mail
• £9.66 on our Skype online number
• £15.65 for a Skype desktop handset from USBNow.co.uk with a surprisingly good quality speaker phone

Sadly we couldn't get a Bath dialling code on our number but nobody seems to care that we are now on 0117 230 3443 which is Bristol... close enough.

Everyone here uses a Three mobile phone and they are currently the only UK network giving free access to Skype. If we are out of the office someone is on rota to log onto Skype from their mobile and calls follow us wherever we go.

Updated. Make sure you get the latest SkypeMate drivers via the link below. They are Windows XP/Vista/7 compatible (even 64-bit) and offer improved stability.

http://www.skypemate.ru/support/docs/#update