Testing RingCentral

I tested voice quality using both the downloadable softphone as well as a preconfigured Linksys 921 SIP phone handset. Setup of the softphone was simple, but call quality just wasn't all that good. In subjective tests, all five respondents using the softphone over our RingCentral account said voice quality on their end was just above that of a cell phone, which would have been fine if we hadn't also suffered through a number of skips. The problem was noticeable enough that I wouldn't want to be using this setup as a substitute for POTS-quality calling in a business. It just didn't sound professional.

Results with a Linksys 921 handset, however, were quite different. If you go with RingCentral, use one: I can't recommend that strongly enough. Voice quality was excellent even after just yanking the phone out of the box and plugging it in—no router tweaks, no firewall tweaks. Just plug and gab. You can order the 921 preprovisioned—right down to the specific extension level. So an administrator can sign up for the service, then set up every user from the management interface and assign each person an individual extension. You can then order the handsets, and each will be configured with one employee's contact info and extension. Plug a phone into an Internet connection and you're ready. Callers ringing your primary number will be presented with an auto-attendant asking if they'd like to browse the company's directory. Ater they enter the last name, they'll hear the extension announced, and the call will be put through. It's as simple as that.

In practice, folks calling you will likely hear a ring or two more than they might with another system—that's the Internet-based PBX doing its routing work long distance. The Microsoft and Avaya/Netgear solutions will be just slightly more responsive that way, since everything's happening locally using your own POTS lines as a back end.

The Linksys 921 isn't light on capabilities, either. You'll find one-button support for all the advanced IP features, so you can update your RingCentral account from the handset as well as the Web site. The phone also supports headsets, message notification, call history, and more. Currently, RingCentral will preprovision only the 921, but the company's online help system has instructions that will help you provision a number of standard SIP phones yourself if you're so inclined. You'll find directions for hardware from Aastra, Cisco, Grandstream, Polycom, and Snom, with more to follow.

Overall, as long as RingCentral was used in conjunction with the Linksys hardware phone, it stood out above both our other competitors. On IP telephony smarts and breadth of features, the RingCentral outshines both Avaya/Netgear and Microsoft. Users can initiate answering rules, manage call screening, and even use real-time call controls—including routing. You can use a "Click to Call" graphic icon on your Web site or as part of your e-mail signature, which lets folks ring your desk extension directly from those locations. Avaya/Netgear, Microsoft, and RingCentral all have some form of Outlook contact integration, but only RingCentral managed one-click dialing from the softphone and also integrated one-click faxing from any office application. There's even SMS text-based alerting capability so you can get voice-mail alerts texted to your cell phone.

Even on a cost-benefit basis, RingCentral looks pretty good. Assuming a $100 average price for the hardware SIP phone, a 20-person office is shelling out $2,000. The additional monthly costs are passed off to RingCentral calling and faxing plans; you'll have those costs in the other two products, too, just not from the same vendor. The only real potential downside we saw to RingCentral was its perceived strength—namely, that ease of use also translates to a lack of local network-management options.

Because you've got less network control over how RingCentral behaves, the service might behave differently over time, especially if you keep adding users. The company didn't provide a "hard-stop" user load as Avaya/Netgear and Microsoft do. RingCentral is of the opinion that users can keep scaling as long as the voice traffic requirement on the local network doesn't become a problem. But RingCentral can't peek into your local network to check conditions, so if a sudden user growth spurt collides with some new network-hungry business application, for example, you could suddenly have problems. Your only defense here is to make sure your network IT specialist or consultant has some familiarity with VoIP and is able to keep an eye on those symptoms.

Also, because RingCentral was designed to run on basic, SMB-style networking infrastructure, you might have trouble should your business suddenly run on higher-end stuff—especially firewalls. In a basic office setup like the one I created at PC Magazine Labs, you shouldn't have a problem unless you're using a truly ancient firewall. But a small company leasing office space and infrastructure from a much larger organization might have trouble, since the higher-end enterprise firewalls have more difficulty passing SIP traffic reliably unless they're custom-tweaked by a pro.

Overall, the breadth of PBX-style features and the ease of use of the interface make RingCentral DigitalLine VoIP Service a highly attractive option for smaller businesses. Assuming that with your network and broadband service you can get acceptable call quality (which definitely requires purchasing SIP phones), I wouldn't hesitate recommending RingCentral.

More VoIP Reviews: