

TellFi (YC W11) Is Google Voice For Companies - jmorin007
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/28/tellfi/

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tptacek
In what way is this better than any of the other hosted PBX solutions out
there? I don't see the novelty here. Even the "advanced" stuff, like voice
mail transcription, have been standard features at virtual PBXs for years now.

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mp3jeep01
We've used existing hosted PBX systems to run our phone systems in the past,
and found them bulky and difficult to setup. We're targeting ease of use and
quick setup - we aren't advertising that we have new features at our core, but
the method of getting to those features and setting them up is a snap.

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tptacek
I'm not trying to be argumentative and I don't want to talk too much about who
we use (I wouldn't want to endorse or anything) but it took like 20 minutes to
get up and running with them.

Have you worked out how you compare pricingwise to the RingCentrals of the
world?

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ceelee
we're working with our telephony providers to keep the pricing as low as
possible, and will also be adding a some new features soon to further
differentiate.

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DenisM
I chatted with their support, and out of the box(*) they don't allow you to
call out from the company phone number. So if you make an outgoing call and
the callee decides to return it, it will be returned to your personal cell
phone during lunch time with the family, not to your business phone with
voceimail etc. In detail, they said it's case by case, and that it might be
illegal if not done right(!?), so they have to "handle it with care".
Obviously, I wouldn't have the patience for it.

I actually do not mind the pricing that much, but they have to deliver on
convenience 100%, and exposing a private phone numbers is an inconvenience.

Also, the additional external line pricing is not posted on the site - support
said it will be about $8 in most cases.

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mp3jeep01
Hi, I handled your support question. Sorry for any confusion. Your specific
question pertained to 'caller-id spoofing', which is where I believe the
confusion occurred. Spoofing of a phone number which you do not own is
illegal, which is the case I was referring to. Outbound calling from within
the web application is not currently supported.

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DenisM
Well, I didn't ask you to spoof the number I don't own, I asked you to spoof
the number I _do_ own. It's the phone number you (would have) sold me!
Wouldn't I own it after handing over the money and becoming able to receive
calls on it?

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ceelee
Sounds like there was some confusion earlier. We are chatting with 20 people
at once right now on Olark, it's easy to get lost. Please email us at
support@tellfi.com and we'll figure everything out for you.

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cpr
Other than instant startup, how does this differ from Phonebooth.com?

We've been very happy with them, at $20/month unlimited calling.

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leahculver
We (Convore Inc) were an early beta user of TellFi. In about 5 minutes we were
able to get a phone number and have that phone number go straight to voicemail
and email us the voicemail. Perfect!

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tumultco
My company got a sneak peak using TellFi, and I'm pretty excited about it. We
don't yet have a physical location, but using their service we were able to
get a business number and setup menu systems ("for such-and-such, press 2")
with appropriate forwarding to our cell phones. This gives us a legitimacy we
otherwise wouldn't have.

Just as I personally don't see the point for a land line now that I've got a
cell phone, I likewise don't see why I would want to worry about getting a
real phone system when we have TellFi.

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X-Istence
I did a review for RingCentral [1] which offers similar features to TellFi,
and honestly so far i have not been impressed by the features offered by these
hosted PBX services.

I have found that many have clunky interfaces that were not easy to set up and
configure AND once configured it was hard to go back and change something.

It certainly is nice to have a service that allows ringing multiple phones,
and has better support for multiple lines unlike Google Voice, but for now I
will stick with Google Voice for my business for the one or two calls I get,
as it is simple to use and free.

RingCentral was nice in that it provided an iPhone application and made it
extremely simple to dial-out using your 1-800 number from that application,
but the iPhone app did not provide access to contacts that were already on the
phone [2] and required setting them up through their system with no easy way
to sync them (all of my business contacts are stored on my business'es Google
Mail account, I don't want to duplicate that).

[1]: [http://www.osnn.net/submitted-news/99624-ringcentral-
virtual...](http://www.osnn.net/submitted-news/99624-ringcentral-virtual-pbx-
solution.html) (A site I am an administrator on) [2]: I reviewed their
services in March of 2010.

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codex
How does this improve, or differ from, Toktumi
(<http://toktumi.com/Whytoktumi.aspx>)? At first glance, they appear quite
similar, with perhaps Toktumi edging ahead on features.

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ceelee
One of our main focus points is usability, building something that anyone can
sign up and use immediately. we actually removed a number of features pre-
launch, just so it make the core functions as simple as possible.

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there
that is the saddest looking screenshot.

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ceelee
New screenshots added to the article.

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ameyamk
Are they using twilio/ tropo on their back end? Just curious

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biot
It looks like a rebranded OpenVBX which runs off of Twilio. If anyone has an
account, it'd be easy to check... search for an available number in TellFi for
a given area code and also do the same search in Twilio. If you find the same
number in both places, there's your answer.

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ceelee
It's not. We built this from the ground-up.

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runT1ME
Can you talk at all about your infrastructure then? Is it powered by
asterisks, FREEswitch, something else, ?

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keltex
That's kind of steep pricing IMO as far as the minutes are concerned. I can
get an OOMA for $200 + $100 / year with 2 lines, 5000 minutes and lots of
other features.

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endtime
As I posted on the other thread (saw that one first, but this has more
comments): How is this different from Phone.com's virtual office, which has
been out for at least a couple years now?
<http://www.phone.com/products/virtual-office/>

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felixchan
We had an early beta of this. It literally takes 2 minutes to set up a phone
for your business and take call routing, voice mail,etc.

Congrats on the launch Jason + Conor!

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DenisM
Oh! Look what I found: <http://inumbr.com/features>

$6.99/mo, 120 minutes, control outgoing caller id. Cool!

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citricsquid
any services like this available for the uk?

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mp3jeep01
Unfortunately right now we only support US and Canadian numbers.

