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PCMag’s voice over IP (VoIP) services survey is back for 2025. Rate whatever broadband-based method you’re using to keep the phones running at your office. :telephone_receiver:

As always, there is a $250 sweepstakes prize for one lucky participant who completes the survey. Due to legalities, the survey and sweeps are open only to US residents ages 18 and older. The survey ends March 17, but don’t wait!

We hope you’ll lend us your experience and expertise. It will help us and all the readers in the market for a VoIP system. We can’t pick a winner without you.

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Other PCMag Surveys currently running include:

11 Spice ups
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Honestly, does anyone like their VoIP Service. It is a necessary evil, kind of like fax lines and printers.

8 Spice ups
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Lol. Who is your favorite oral surgeon for root canals?

9 Spice ups
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I only use one for work (via Teams) , I don’t have a home number just a mobile number.

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Anybody out there using Vonage? I’m currently using ITPVoiP, and their service has gone waaaay downhill. Vonage will save me enough for a Paramount+ subscription. But I don’t want to go from bad to just as bad or worse for some Star Trek streams.

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We are currently using Mitel and they are basically liquidating. So we are in the process of looking into all the new options… it’s rough out there.

3 Spice ups
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Same, we are on Mitel orange. It’s shoestrings and bumble gum. Mitel “Blue” is being pitched to us, but we haven’t seen anything.

1 Spice up
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That was easy, I answered No to the first question and it’s done. We are still on POTS.

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We use RingCentral where I work. I like it well enough. I have more issues with cordless IP cordless DECT phones and Bluetooth headsets than VoIP itself.

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@ajason
Just curious - out of the cordless VoIP phones you have used, which model do you think is the most reliable and works the best?

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At this point, I am not sure that I have a clear recommendation.

At one of our locations, we have the Grandstream WP820 WiFi phone and I have not heard complaints.

At our main and largest location, we opted to use the Yealink W90 DECT system with the W78H and W59R handsets. We were not confident that the WiFi would handle all the additional traffic and felt it best to keep that separate. I have had several issues with the phones. Things like re-synchronizing and issues with calls not going through for a few of the phones and the occasionally odd issue like one phone ringing about 1-2 seconds behind the other phones.

The fact that I have more issues at our main location doesn’t tell the entire story though, since we have a lot more calls and users there than the one with the Grandstream phones.

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@ajason

Thanks for the info. The RingCentral implementation technicians told us to stay away from the Yealink brand altogether.
I’m going to do more research on wireless VoIP, and may open a new thread on the topic. Not trying to sidetrack this thread.

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@sbux2k

That is interesting. Yealink is a partner with RingCentral. We got there a roundabout way as we started with Ring Logix and the Yealink W90 system was recommended to us. I wonder what they do recommend… I will look for a new thread from you.

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Completed

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Our company has been using the Grandstream WP820 for a number of years and then most-recently the WP825. The 820 can take a bit of a beating and the 825 seems to be much better. I don’t use them, but the one who sets the up and provisions for use with the healthcare staff at multiple locations.

Sure you can have whatever pheon app your VoIP system may provide, but in regard to staff turnover and training a simple phone like this much better and less intimidating and it has been received well.

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We used to build and sell Asterisk based phone systems, typically with POTS on the FXO / carrier side and VoIP on the FXS / station side. We used exclusively Polycom phones initially because of name recognition and then just because that’s what we knew. Somewhere around 10 years ago, we got hooked up with RingCentral by a client. Ultimately, when our office phone system needed to be upgraded (something that we’d have done internally), we opted instead to switch to RingCentral and we haven’t looked back. When some of the phone systems that we had installed in client sites started reaching EOL, we started replacing those with RingCentral and ultimately became a RingCentral partner. RingCentral isn’t perfect but I’d suggest that no vendor is. We have good service most of the time and good support when we need it. There was a significant outage in January that was bad but that’s the first real problem that we’ve had with them in the decade or so since we’ve been using them. With our on-prem PBXs, if the carrier went down (POTS or VoIP), the client was just down. With RingCentral (and I believe most modern hosted VoIP platforms), the mobile app keeps the end users up and going until the carrier issues are squared away.

1 Spice up