VoIP Now

In 2004 a small team of teachers, business analysts and technical developers got together to find a new way to increase communication between schools and parents. By using the latest technology this team was able to design a new service that allowed teachers to broadcast messages to parents using voice and SMS.

This service has grown over the years to provide mass communication services to many (large or small) businesses and non profit organizations. Group2call provides all sorts of mass messaging services such as school alerts and notifications, sports team alerts, religious messages and congregation events, customer registration and news updates, entertainment event updates, neighborhood watch alerts, weather alerts, crime alerts and much more. They also are a preferred vendor for the NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) where they currently are working on a project to provide voice and SMS alerts in case of any national disaster.

Their data centers are currently located in Ohio. They chose this location because it may be less susceptible to uncontrolled events (natural disasters) which may pose a threat to the continuity of their critical business services.

Installation and Interface

This service works only with Works with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Nextel & Alltel services, and it is an ideal service for schools, communities, sports teams, religious organizations and businesses. Each group is categorized and charged different prices depending upon profit and nonprofit status.

Basically, Group2call provides the means to broadcast a voice or text message to unlimited groups. The online interface allows you to visualize your account settings, message preferences, scheduled messages and message history. You can setup unlimited groups, record and store messages for later use, view the status of your outgoing messages as well as delivered messages. Group2call also tells you how the message was delivered. For example it will tell you if a person answered the phone versus answering machine.

If you are in a remote location with no access to email or the Internet, you can call Group2call’s toll-free number, record your message, choose your group and your message is instantly broadcast to your contacts. Alternatively, just type your message and send it via email or SMS.

Group2call supports IE 6+ (version 7 preferred), Firefox and Safari browsers, PCs and Macs.

Features

This service is fairly simple and easy to use, and most of the features have already been mentioned. However, you might want to know that you can translate from English to Spanish, upload your own MP3 or WAV files, send a recorded voice message as an SMS or email, you can export your voice broadcast history to text, CSV or Excel spreadsheets and there are no hidden costs or charges.

By default your account number is the caller id on all outgoing calls. You can also set the caller id, or block the caller id, for individual groups within Message Center. Before sending a voice broadcast, you will need to provide Group2call with a list of phone numbers and other optional information for the people you would like to call. This information will not be shared with any third parties, pursuant to this privacy policy and the Group2call User Agreement.

This service currently is available only in North America.

Performance

Group2call is so confident of their product and service that they offer a free download that comes with free setup, free imports of your contact list, fifty free voice messages and unlimited SMS messages using their free SMS gateway.

Service and Support

Group2call provides free customer support through email. Group2call Service subscriptions automatically renew on a monthly basis at the rate indicated on the pricing plans page of the Group2call.com Web site. Users may discontinue their subscription at any time by logging in to the website and selecting “Cancel my Subscription”, or by sending an email to support.

List of Features Available on Group2call

Support: Yes Guarantee: No Residential Plan: Yes Small Business Plan: Yes 411 Service: No 911 Service: No

Call Return (*69): No Call Waiting: No Caller ID: Yes Click-to-Call: Yes Fax Line (FoIP): No International Calling: No

IP PBX Solution: No Keep Your Number: No PC-to-PC Calling: Yes PC-to-Phone Calling: Yes Virtual Phone Numbers: No

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