atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information What's the Difference between Home and Business Service?

Business service used to provide greater reliability, better quality and faster service in the event of outages. I obviously can't talk to everywhere, but at least in NYC it all seems to be the same -business or residential - everything is identical. It was already getting bad 20 years ago, now it's just gotten worse.


Sam

Yes. I am a business. I'm not looking to do anything that's odd, strange or not customarily done. But there are rules and there are rules. In Los Angeles people observe J-walking laws but in Manhattan they ignore them. I didn't know if people with home offices typically used residential lines or not. If they don't, then I don't have any problem following the rules. But I wanted to ask the question. I don't want to be the one person in Manhattan standing on the corner waiting for the light to change while everyone else passes me by.

Doesn't matter if you run your business out of a refrigerator carton. Phone companies only see that you are a business so they charge you higher business rates.


Though I have never seen it I'm willing to bet there are businesses who have figured ways to get resi service so yeah, plenty of home offices do. It's just in whatever you can get the phone company to believe. But once you have a business account set up you can't go back.

-Hal

My cousin ran a business from her home for ten years before finally expanding into a real office. She never paid business rates for her very good home phone number (XXX-5050). She got caught during a random check of good numbers by Bell Atlantic. In order to keep her number, she had to pay the difference between residential and business rates for two years, plus a hefty deposit.

She had no choice. They aren't stupid.

I try to tell people this with regard to using cell phone numbers for business use. If you read the fine print, most cell service providers' contracts forbid the use of their service plans for business use. Every day, I see bandit contractors driving around with cell phone numbers on their vehicles.

They obviously aren't doing a very good job of enforcing their own policies since this abuse is rampant around here.

Who in the heck would hire a contractor that doesn't have a verifiable business address and telephone number anyway? Talk about asking for it....

Isn't that the truth? Everyone out here jaywalks... in fact, the mayor of Philadelphia had some trouble with that a few years back. The newspapers out here were incredulous - who enforces jaywalking laws anyway? =)

Yellow Pages listing isn't just the phone book anymore. It is linked to their website which provides HUGE search exposure.

(this outta insite a riot)

Port the main number to a SIP trunk and get a SIP capable phone system.

Rates will be better, and it doesnt matter where your system is...Home, CA, NY...

I'm with Mongo Matt...that would be the best all around solution.

they still have centrex?

Time Warner probably has EMTA boxes. You tie that into your cable service you will probably save money and be able to tie that to your phone system without a lot of cost.