edpaffjr.comWith the upcoming move I’ve been considering how I will communicate with my colleagues back in Kansas City. I can easily forward my phone here to another number automatically, so everyone in KC should be able to call me just as before. However, I have realized that this could quickly eat up all of my cell phone minutes. Currently I do not use my work phone often at all, but I can see using a phone much more when I can’t walk down the hall to ask a simple question or have a longer conversation that wouldn’t work well in email.
I’ve come up with a few options to solve this. First, I could ask for a company cell phone just like most of the trainers out on the road all the time have. Obviously I wouldn’t have to worry about the minutes or the bill. The other option is to get another phone, but not a cell phone, one of those fancy internet phones. I’m not sure if the company would pick up the bill for this or not, but there are affordable plans, some even include unlimited minutes. I’ve looked at Vonage and Skype very briefly, but I’m still fairly new to all of this.
Are there any other options that I haven’t considered? If both options were free, which would you choose? I’m trying to keep my options open since I have no idea what will happen, but it’s never too early to start thinking about the future, right?
if you are only worried about communicating with people in your office, why not use instant message. if thats not an option i would go with a company cell phone or keep the one you have and get the company to pay for it. i’m not familiar with any of the internet phone services but i know some offsite people who use skype at other companys. maybe you can get a blackberry like kim :)
I don’t know if I could convince everyone to sign onto an IM client, but that would definitely be ideal for me.
A cell phone would probably be the way to go, as long as it is paid for by the company. And I would definitely take a blackberry if they were going to give me one.
I, too, work from home, for a company in Boston. I found a deal with Time Warner that for $39.95/month you get unlimited calling is the US – all long distance is covered. (doesn’t work for when I have to call the UK or Australia, but luckily that’s not often).
its really conveninet as you don’t have to keep track of how many minutes you’ve used, etc. if your company isn’t picking up the bill for phone services.
Time Warner doesn’t have service in Denver, but I think that Comcast offers similar phone service. The only disadvantage I can see with that is that I couldn’t easily travel with the phone. I still am not sure what is going to happen with the phone situation, but I’m sure that will change once they cannot call me at the hotel anymore…
Our company does have an instant messenger application that my boss and I are beginning to use pretty frequently.