Voice over IP

[TimS]

I have been looking at this issue for nearly 12 months - but taken no decisions as it is an area clearly still 'in development'.

With a company of some nine people home working - with three regular travellers who always stay when possible in broadband equipped locations as we are highly 'web based'- (we use ADSL and VPN technology primarily to give us shared databases and GDS/CRS access via a central SITA link) we primarily want to have our central telephone number answered at the (home based) office and transferred to whoever is the specialist in the subject (having checked on a live system) whether they are 'at work' at the time - i.e a virtual switchboard.

Our customers are 'world wide' - and we have a phone bill running well into 4 figures a month, which I would very muh like to reduce.

I have spent much of today looking at solutions that we previously dismissed as 'too basic' and have just tested SKYPE (simple and brilliant but limited outbound and no inbound PSTN capability) and BABBLE (still trying to get it to work).

I would appreciate any suggestions for 'short term' and 'long term' solutions.

Thanks

TimS