For our fourth installment in our Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) blog series, we are evaluating Intermedia. Intermedia is based in Sunnyvale, California and was founded in 1995.
Intermedia’s service offering is branded as “Unite”. They offer two pricing levels; Unite Pro Plan ($27.99/month) and Unite Enterprise Plan ($32.99/month). Each offers a cloud-based phone system, auto-attendant, voicemail, unlimited calling to US and Canada, team messaging, and online meetings.
Some VoIP services use a third-party video conferencing solution that is integrated but Intermedia’s video conferencing service is built into the product.
The following is a list of key features available with Intermedia’s Unite Pro plan. I have added a brief description of the feature for your edification:
- Voicemail and Greeting – Personalized voice mail and greetings. Messages can be received or forwarded as a downloadable email attachment.
- Video Conferencing – Using their AnyMeeting system, Intermedia allows you to host video calls with up to 4 participants.
- Audio Conference Calling – Up to 200 participants with 200 toll-free minutes/month
- Team Chat and Messaging – Text messages can be sent to your same phone number. Your clients have the convenience of one number to reach you.
- Mobile & Desktop Apps – Load your softphone app on up to five endpoints. When a call comes in you can answer it on your office phone, PC, tablet, or cell phone.
- Hunt Groups – With Unite, you can enter up to ten hunt groups.
- Spam Caller Protections – The system can identify spam callers and automatically reject those calls.
- Call Forwarding – Forward calls to any extension, to an outside line, or directly to voicemail using Intermedia’s answering rules.
- Auto-Attendant – Customize greetings and route incoming calls based on business hours, the date, or a date range.
- Call Flip – Allows you to continue your active call using a different device. You can flip from your mobile phone to your desk phone and back again.
- Third Party Integrations – this feature allows you to connect your Unite Desktop App to popular third-party business applications to increase productivity.
These are just a few of the features that Intermedia has to offer. Intermedia can also bundle Microsoft Exchange email into their offering as well. They also provide a lower cost for a lobby phone which most VoIP services don’t have. The base cost of the service is a bit more expensive than the other available solutions, however, many of intermedia’s standard features and functionalities, such as call recording and unlimited voicemail storage, are paid add-on features with other providers.
One key feature is their uptime service level agreement (SLA) which touts a 99.999% uptime. Whenever you purchase a cloud service like this, a key differentiator is access to an available, efficient support line. Intermedia’s 24 x 7 support received J.D. Power’s certification for effective support.
Next month, I’ll take a deeper look into RingCentral, 8 x 8, and Intermedia’s competitor, Nextiva.
Authored by Donald Nokes
As President of NetCenergy, Don Nokes is responsible for ensuring client satisfaction, and overseeing company performance and direction. Prior to co-founding the firm with Dan Charland in 2003, Don held senior leadership positions with IT service firms ranging in size from $3 Billion to $10 Million in annual sales.
Nick Eckman joined NetCenergy in 2016 from an international gaming company. Nick’s experience with supervising and implementing secure, fiber and copper wire infrastructure services provides our clients with a team of highly trained and experienced technicians. In addition to the skills required to manage our infrastructure services department, Nick brings a very experienced and focused approach to project management and is a stickler for accurate documentation for every project designed and built by his team.
Peter Lachapelle joined NetCenergy in 2015 and is responsible for leading all of NetCenergy’s operations and accounting functions. Each department within NetCenergy reports through Lachapelle. He brings his years of experience to maintain a pragmatic, efficient, client-focused team at NetCenergy. Lachapelle joined NetCenergy after completing a 27-year career with a Rhode Island, federally-charted bank which culminated in his senior management position as COO and CFO for the bank.
Peter Nelson has 25+ years of technology and management experience and has been with NetCenergy since inception. Peter serves as the VP of Engineering at NetCenergy. His role consists of managing the engineering staff, driving the companies technology strategy, and ensuring NetCenergy keeps up to date on new technologies and solutions.
As a Founding Partner, Dan is a result oriented individual who is always focusing on what is best for his client. He understands that business applications empower an organization and that technology must support those critical business applications. Dan’s technology career started in 1990 at EMC Corporation. Through the years, he has represented technology and consulting services for several organizations until 2003, when he and Don Nokes founded NetCenergy.
With decades of hands-on HR experience, Margery Ahearn is our Director of Human Resources, overseeing all hiring of new positions for NetCenergy with a careful eye on sourcing technology savvy engineers and skilled office-based professionals who fit our company culture, understand our commitment to our clients, and bring their time and talents to our team. Margery has both a BA and MBA in Business Administration from Southern New Hampshire University.