Re: Promoting MORE users??

Pirate · Post by **Pirate** » 04/25/2010

As far as I understand from the previous forums, FPL makes money from users calling in through their network. But at the same time, they don't allow "business" customers for "business" use. Why is FPL shooting themself in the foot?? Wouldn't it be MORE to FPL's advantage if they get more "traffic" and make more money if users use it for "business" purposes?? Maybe FPL should keep one eye closed and be a bit more "lenient" for business users to sign-up. For sure, FPL will get a lot more traffic from business users over personal users.

Post by **bridonca** » 04/25/2010

Freephoneline.ca's parent company Fibernetics http://www.fibernetics.ca deals with business clients. That would probably be a better company to deal with for your business needs.

Bloodsong · Post by **Bloodsong** » 04/25/2010

*nods*
Of course there are some "businesses" run from small single office environments which only need a single phone number and line, in these cases it might be okay to use FreePhoneline, but then I haven't read the TOS that closely.

Pirate · Post by **Pirate** » 04/25/2010

But for some reason, fibernetics don't seem to heavily promote the free lines unless if you buy their PBX systems. So you are saying that ANY businesses can call in and just port their lines over without having to purchase any PBX systems? (Some might already have PBX's in place).

bridonca wrote:Freephoneline.ca's parent company Fibernetics http://www.fibernetics.ca deals with business clients. That would probably be a better company to deal with for your business needs.

Bloodsong · Post by **Bloodsong** » 04/26/2010

I just went to the Fibernetics site (It's been a little while.) The first thing that I saw was a full page banner ad for how Fibernetics can give free business phonelines. Then it was the first link on their top-bar, so I don't see how it's not promoted... but there are some things to keep in mind for business phonelines over residential ones.

Bridonca never said anything about PBXes, but remember this board is FreePhonelines board, not Fibernetics board. The staff who frequent this board are from Free Phone Line (Staff being Steve and Kris). Others such as myself, TSellers, Bridonca etc. Are just trying to help.

So Business vs. Residential:
Fibernetics can't do as Free Phone Line does and simply say to everyone "Hey, come hither for your new free phone line." This is because in the business market a phone carrier is required to be able to present a certain service level agreement. Without a guaranteed SLA the company fails to provide a competitive solution.

The ability to provide one of these SLAs requires a few things, not the least of which is man-power. The business must be able to respond rapidly to any trouble tickets or outages.
Next is control, if you're on their network, using 100% end to end, their equipment installed and setup exactly to their specifications, they can maintain a consistent environment in which it is possible to predict and document issues in a uniform way for quick resolution.

You'll notice there have been issues on this board, where various home routing equipment or modems which have been switched back from serving as a router/switch refuse to give up their firewall and cause all sorts of issues. Could you imagine how frustrating that would be to troubleshoot for 1000 business that all used different equipment?

I don't pretend to know Fibernetic's business practices, but I do know there are certain things which have to be fundamentally different from the way that FPL does things, elsewise they could not succeed.

If you want to know about business lines, I suggest you contact the Fibernetics sales team, or at the very least go read the info available at Fibernetics.ca

As they have a lot of general information about "Fibernetics Digital PBX" systems, and training, which phones they use with the Fibernetics Digital PBX System etc. (Which would suggest to me that they control the Voice network environment fairly closely.)

Post by **FONGO_steve** » 04/26/2010

Bloodsong hit the nail on the head here

If you are interested in Fibernetics offerings, definitely give them a call to discuss this further. Although Kris and I work quite closely with our PBX customers, we are not sales trained for Fibernetics, nor do we pretend to be. As Bloodsong says, there's a lot more to offering service for a business than there is for residential customers.