Yak vs CallCentric

I have had call centric for about 5 years now, they have had a few rough patches as well as some individuals taking advantage of their programs. The free phone number program is gone. Now there is a $1 per month DID charge but this is specifically restricted for limited residential use. If your use is for a home office or business purpose you have to go to a office unlimited plan for $8.95 per month and then add an outbound calling plan, i use the 120 min for $1.95 charge which includes the taxes related to 911 service. Overall I now pay $10.90 per month which is still less expensive than the other SIP plan providers. I like most of the features, but a little dejected that if you have voicemail activated then every call will end up routing to voicemail. For one of the numbers I had calls could not go to a voicemail. The only way to do that was to cancel the line and order a new account. Now that free phone number has stopped I have cancelled all the lines on that account and just have a internet phone number only with the voice mail. Once I get a routing program set to filter out calls not intended for the non vm company to the other account's internet number. For a small business you don't need anything really, but a few IP phones and order business unlimited DID if you need more than one channel, but still under the same number this can be ordered through the plan. You start with 3 trunk channels, so you may need to request more if you have 3 extensions and occasionally have folks holding for someone. channels include every inbound and outbound call or transfer call needed at any given time. So consider 6 to 9 a good starting point. The system also allows you to configure an auto attendant with call queueing for a team. When you want to move up you would need to configure a IP PBX (often setup on a home server) this is not for the light of heart and normally requires a pro to get everything set properly. But, a pro and IP PBX can leverage things like trunks in use BLF led's and reporting of calls received and average calls hold time in queue. It requires a skilled IP PBX programer to properly implement these but when they are done right they are wonderful.