What the cheapest way to call US(non-VOIP) from COL for a business?..

Mr. Hollywood says on Dec 13, 2004, 11:53:

Why no VOIP Why don't you want to use VOIP?

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Patrick says on Dec 13, 2004, 12:06:

I set one up on.. I set one up on the island of Curacao where the folks are tri-lingual. Besides the infrastructure problems in Colombia (telephone service is not state of the art) you need bi-lingual operators. Lots of Luck!

Don't blame me I voted for Ron Paul!

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caslug says on Dec 13, 2004, 12:24:

Doesn't matter VOIP or not, but.. I thought VOIP call to regular phones are very expensives, but if they're not then i would consider it. I checked w/ the Vonage website for calls from VOIP to a non-VOIP phone in COL, it was 8 cent/minute. I'm looking for ANY plans that are 2-5 cents or even better if I can pay X dollars and get unlimited calls.

Here's in the US my company pays $50/mo for unlimited calls in the US.

I thought telephone service in BOG IS state of the art? It's not? Is find a good/excellent english speaking employee that difficult in BOG? They don't have to be fluent, because they'll be reading off a script and answer basic questions. Keep the input coming.

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caslug says on Dec 13, 2004, 12:25:

Patrick.. Is the cost of living & business(rent, wages, phone, etc.,) more or less expensive than COL, Peru, or VEN?

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ACBlessing says on Dec 13, 2004, 12:40:

My Vonage is 6 cents per minute to directly call Bogota and 11 cents per minute to call cellular (310). The best part is the absense of all the taxes and tolls which effectively drops the per-call charge a a penny per minute, depending of course on calling Colombia a lot.

However, if you got Vonage service and used it in Colombia to call the U.S., it would be a local call anywhere because you can pick a Miami area code (for example) for your home area and call the rest of the U.S. free.

I haven't had enough espresso yet....hope that made sense.


Alex Blessing, Spokane, WA, USA
alex at acblessing.com,MSN Messenger
www.acblessing.com

Just plain poor

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viewpoint says on Dec 13, 2004, 12:46:

caslug I am not sure that you have a clear understanding about VOIP as it would be used from Colombia but you can make unlimited calls to the USA, Canada and ever western Europe for as little as $20.00 per month using VOIP. If you are calling USA numbers as your post states then why would you be paying .08 cents/minute to call Colombia ????? You are not calling Colombia but rather you are calling the USA from Colombia and that doesn't generate an additional charge beyond the $20/MO. unlimited calling.

If for some unknown reason you don't want to work with VOIP then need to forget about that business in Colombia as the LD calls would eat you alive. Go to Panama and you can get rates as low as .05/cents per minute (less with volume) but even then they use VOIP equipment to route their calls. Anytime you pick-up a normal PSTN telephone and call LD more than likely some of the call will be routed VOIP even on AT&T or any long distance provider including all the Colombian carriers.

Panama has the english speaking people at higher wage rates than Colombia but it would be much easier to work from there. Long distance rates are much less as VOIP is legal there commerically.
The cost of living in Colombia is lower than any of the sorrounding countries but access to fluent english speaking speak will not be better than you will find in Panama. You can hire bilingual telemarketing people in Panama for about $500/mo. (my guess) and some incentive payment on top of that.

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caslug says on Dec 13, 2004, 12:54:

Good info.. Here's what my company wants to do, maybe you guys can tell me if COL is place or not. We're thinking of setting up a small 2 person "sales" team, good english, to "blitz" cold call US business. Managing the team is not problem, because i would do it. I estimate using between 10-15k telephone minutes per month from COL to USA. I don't care what the system is (VOIP or not) as long as quality is good and price is reasonable. I'll be going down to BOG again in spring, this time checking out things a little bit more.

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viewpoint says on Dec 13, 2004, 13:00:

caslug Well if "you" want to be in Colombia rather than Panama you could do this using VOIP as your requirement for the employees is small and will be not a problem to find that small of sales team. Using VOIP you can operate cheaper in Colombia but without it better head to Panama.

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caslug says on Dec 13, 2004, 13:03:

Thanks VP.. What's the sound quality like on VOIP? Is it as good as talking w/ land lines in the US? or like a cell phone call? Or worst?

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viewpoint says on Dec 13, 2004, 13:14:

caslug The quality is not quite as good as a land line in the USA but better than a cell phone and better than the quality of making a standard LD call on 005, 007 or 009 from Colombia which would be your other options. The quality of service is for the most part determined by the speed and quality of your DSL or broadband service in Colombia (or where ever you are). You need good uplink and downlink speeds but in Colombia and elsewhere in most of Latin America the quality and available speeds suck. I am using 256/128 in Medellin after using 128/64 kbps broadband and still not satisfied with the quality as I need higher speeds of probably DSL service to support multiple line VOIP systems. Some of the VOIP service providers use as much as 90 kbps bandwidth so you can see what happens then you use that VOIP telephone on a 128/64 broadband or DSL system as nothing else will fuction at all or well including the call. For that reason I upgraded to faster speeds and bandwidth and went to VOIP service providers that use small bandwidth (as low as 17 to 30 kbps). To be honest I think for a call center to fuction with multiple lines (4 lines) you will need a high speed internet connection that costs you up to US$200 per month (just a guess). In Seattle we have DSL connections that cost US$18/MO. which are US$50 in Colombia (delivering worse quality).

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kernow62 says on Dec 13, 2004, 13:16:

Most calls go over the Internet now anyway so sounds about the same.

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thundernco says on Dec 13, 2004, 14:03:

Viewpoint Thanks, great info. Which voip services are not bw hogs and reliable?

Thanks for the info. -TNC

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caslug says on Dec 13, 2004, 16:25:

Gringo.. COL has the following advantage for me:

a) it's same time zone as US, my prospects are companies all over the US from west coast to east coast. Also my suppliers & tech support staff are also the same.
b) 3 1/2 hr flight from COL to Miami, so I can easily head back for meetings about 1/month. Cheaper fare than from asia back to US.
c) educated work force that I can hire from, for sales/telemarketing I don't need high technical skills.
d) high underemployement or unemployement, so employee wages will be lot lower than the US.
d) low cost of living

The other countries I will look at will be Peru & Venezuela. I like Peru because the safety is better, but the main drawback is a longer flight back to US, same goes for Argentina.

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mrxcol says on Dec 13, 2004, 17:57:

Some additional info you may need So Caslug here goes some additional info:

While in Bogota you will have the following high Bandwidth options:

ETB: Is the only DSL provider in the city. You will get 256/128 for US$ 60. It's not guaranteed speed as it's not a clear channel (has a 1:8 re-usage rate).

You can manage to deal with a local carrier like AT&T or even Telmex. I don't have their rates but they're looking into becoming a big player here in Colombia. Anyway around US$ 60 is the cheaper rates you can get in Colombia.

Internet speed in Colombia is very diffenret than USA. It depends on which carrier are you going to use. Due to local laws, ETB (007), 005 and 009 must use the 009 (Telecom) internet infrastructure. So they all relay on the Maya and Arcos cable which connect Telecom. Telecom is a level 2 provider, so you will get a connection from a level 3 carrier and you will becoma a 4th level access. This is not as good as working diectly with a carrier such as AT&T which are 1st level carriers. And local lowas forbid the 005, 007 and 009 from having different deals with anybody. Instead you can always have a meerting with you CSR in a private company and have a different deal with them. Anyway, we're talking about US$ 10-20 additional and you should decide which one to use.

I'm a level 3 ISP. I live in Cali, connect through my city carrier (Emcali) which connects to Telecom (009), and then to Internet. I've been with Emcali for over 4 years and have excellent quality. I also have a web cafe for surfing and gaming through the net and manage to have 8 PC's surfing at the same time with a 512/128 kb link (which costs me US$ 160. This PC's have the ability to have videoconference and i can have up to 4-6 medium quality conferences.

What kind of phone service are you going to use ? are you going to use a VoIP provider or a tech on your own ? remember to use G.711 which provides an excelent sound. Also. What you biggest expense: local or LD calls (int'l) ?

You can manage to get a bilingual person working in 8 hours shift for about US$ 500. Local regulations increase this salary up to 48% (in a yearly basis) due to all employee benefits so consider it a US$ 740 monthly expense.

City (country) safety, rent, equipments (computers, desk, etc) is in interesting but noy so important thing. Really. Bogota, and even Cali or Medellin are not as dangerous as you may have heard. Most english speaking colombians have a neutral accent, so Colombia is highly desirable for telemarketing or call center business. If you want more info (or have some questions), e-mail me at jllanten at rocketmail.com and i will glady help you.


Julian Llanten.

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caslug says on Dec 13, 2004, 19:23:

Thx Julian, Just the kinda of info i need. What's this 48% employee reg stuff? Good to know you can upgrade to a higher bandwidth internet plan. Where's is your internet cafe in Cali? You're not french are you? I met a french guy that had a internet cafe on the same block as the Meyer's Langauge Institute.

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caslug says on Dec 14, 2004, 10:01:

Can someone tell me about.. what kind of tax or other cost associated w/ paying an employee beyond their salary? A poster has mention i need to add 48% more to their income to get the true emloyee cost. What is that all that cost? Thanks.

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viewpoint says on Dec 14, 2004, 10:47:

Caslug There are many other costs mandated by the government that your must (should) pay including 13th month salary (year end bonus),health insurance, pension, transportation and other payroll requirements.

Perhaps Hunter could better explain them as I think he knows the requirements.

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caslug says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:07:

Gov't req.. Is that for full time employees or part time too? I can't imagine those people that work in food court are getting that? Are they? Wow, didn't know there was alot of above & beyond cost. In the states, we don't have to pay bonus(unless the company wants to) or provide health insurance, pension, etc., Thanks for the info, i rather know about it now then later.

Also, is the bonus thing kicks in after 12 mo employement? of at end of the fiscal year?

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Mr. Hollywood says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:14:

If you're keeping it small If you're really talking about yourself and a couple employees, it might be easier to not exist as a business in Colombia and just do the whole thing off the books. It's a gigantic pain to get a business officially started here and a lot of companies just pay their Colombian employees cash.

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viewpoint says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:18:

Caslug Even the simpliest employment like hiring a maid requires a contract if done correctly. Sure many part time employees are just paid cash but I notice that even that is done formally requiring a receipt signed by both the payor and the receipent with each payment. In the USA you pay pension but it's called social security and the total is 15.3% with 7.65% paid by the employee and 7.65% paid by the employer on top of the wages paid. The health insurance costs are not substantial as they used to be about 30 mil pesos per person per month and probably now are 50 mil pesos per person per month. The transportation allowance is very small compared to the actual cost of transportation.

In the USA I pay $300 per month just for 100% employer provided health insurance for my employees. In Colombia you can hire an entry level employee (including benefits) for less than the cost of providing the health insurance for the USA employees.

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mrxcol says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:18:

Other costs Im not french but i'm studying french in order to move to Montreal in a couple of years.

The other costs are:

- 1% ICBF (Colombian Institute for Family Well-Being). Monthly. payment to a government agency.
- 1.5% (approx) ARP (Proffesional Risks Assurance). Monthly payment to a company you choose (if under 10 employees you can only affiliate to the ISS (government agency), otherwise you can choose another company)
- 8% Healthcare (It's a 12% rate: employer pays 8%, employee pays 4%). Monthly payment to a company the employee decides.
- 10.5% (approx be) Retirement fund. It's a 14% rate: employer pays 3/4 of the whole (10.5%) and employee 1/4 (3.5%). Monthly payment to a company the employee decides.
- 8.3% Vacations (15 days or proportion paid on yearly basis after the first year of continued labor). Paid to employee.
- 8.3% Extra bonus. Paid in two halfs (4.16% each) prior to the second week of June and December. It's paid proportional. Paid to employee.
- 16.6% Unemployment fund. Paid yearly in the first two months. Paid to a company the employee decides. Employee can't get this money unless for study, house building (or buying) or after getting unemployed.

All payment are due inmmediately after the moment you sign a contract. No 1 year time is required.

I'm sorry. I was wrong in my calculations. This costs are about 54% the salary. This are mandatory for all kind of workers (full time and part-time). You can give extra bonus (most bigger companies do) if you want but they don't add to base salary.

Colombia's minimun wage is COP$358.000 (US$ 150) plus a transport subsidy of COP$41.600 (US$ 17.3). You must pays this subsidy if employee gains lesser than 2 minimum wages..

Also, keep in mind that Colombian regular day hours are 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM. After this hours it's charged at a nigthly wage rate of 200% increase per worked hour. Normal hours is calculated with the base salary. On sundays, the hours are triplicated.

Colombian regulations says that the normal work hour is 48 hours and a mandatory day off. You can move your employees' day off but nobody can work 2 weeks without at least 1 day off.

Also remember that Colombia has about 18 legal holidays in the year. Due to a local law, most of this days are moved into the mondat next week except for chrishtmas (Dec 25th), New year (Jan 1st), Labor day (May 1st), Independence day (Aug 7th), Vargas swamp (marsh?) battle (Jul 20th) and Discovery day (Oct 12th). This days must be paid (if worked at a triple rate).

When setting up a business in colombia you must go to the Business Chamber office of your city. Fill some papers and register for a RUT (equivalent to and ID with the IRS) with DIAN (our IRS). You must check for local zoning for setting your business in the area you want, pay for a firemen's visit (you must buy a fire extinguisher and have an emergency ligth depending on your workplace), Local healt-care office visit (must fumigate) and register for city taxes.


I forgot to tell you! very important: In colombia a company pays rent taxez (35%) on yearley revenues prior to the last day of march. Also, in the same three months you must: Renew your affiliation to local business chamber and pay city taxes (different rates starting from 1/1000 up to (the most usual) 11/1000 on gross sales). We don't pays state taxess, because the state lives from taxes to beer and cigarrettes (and others).

If selling local goods or services must add a 16% tax rate. You must pay the difference between paid and gathered taxes to government bi-monthly. If wanna setup anoter kind of business (offshore, etc) i don't have info.

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caslug says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:21:

Hollywood, is that easy? Can i get a office lease/rent, phone hook up, etc., w/o the busienss being register in COL. Since my business is not buying or selling things in COL or exporting stuff out, i thought i could get by with less regulation and paperwork.

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viewpoint says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:26:

mrxcol Thank you for your well detained explanation. This represents the best explanation I have ever seen in 5 1/2 years of asking the same question myself.

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caslug says on Dec 14, 2004, 11:27:

That's lots of info Julian.. Wow, didn't know COL was so expensive and complicate to have a business in. What's the co. rent tax? 35% on CO revenue?? That's before expenses? Is that basically corporate tax?

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mrxcol says on Dec 14, 2004, 12:05:

MISTAKE !!! I'm sorry i was wrong in some info:

FORGOTTEN COSTS:
- 2% SENA (National Learning Service)
- 4% Caja de Compensacion. Don't know the word for this. In Colombia exists some private companies which receive this income percent and work in worker's benefit. They provide cheap loans, access to water parks, vacation's site (at cheap rates), education's help, etc. It's a monthly payment to a company choosed by the employee.
- 1% Unemployment rate interests. You remain with your employee's unemployment payment for 1 year until payment on february each year (remember, you don't pay unemployment to employee but a company chosen by him). So you must pay a 1% interest.

OLD COSTS (BUT WITH WRONG INFO)

- 3% ICBF (I HAD 1% INSTEAD)
- 2.15% ARP (I HAD 1.5% INSTEAD)
- 4.16% Vacations: 15 days yearly paid in proportion. (I HAD IT DUPLICATED)
- 8.33% Unemployment fund. Paid yearly before a given date in february. (I HAD IT DUPLICATED).


That would be 49.26%. I was wrong since the beginning so i check with a friend.

You can always have a different kind of contract. It's a contractor contract. You pay nothing but a single ammount of money. But it must be higher than usual as the contractor ("employee") must pay everything from his own "salary". Yo must be very careful as a this kind of contract is not very diffeent from a worker contract. Colombian laws say a worker contract requires:

1) A boss and employee relation (you give orders, he obbeys)
2) A payment for this task
3) A mandatory entry time, and minimun time worked.

If you make a contractor contract and put this thing inside it, you are signing a worker contract and you can be sued in order to get paid the 49.26% additional.


Also, i forgot to tell you about terminating contract. Normally you must give a 30 days warning (as well as you employee) or pay a month.

I'm not sure i'm saying the appropiate word. You take yous sales income (knows as gross income), minus costs of producing, administering, financing and so on (expenses) and get revenues ?

If so, i'm OK. You pay 35% on revenues (yearly). Also, if in loss, you have 1 year to get revenues. If after that, you must pay a minimum 7.92% of your patrimony (capital). Also, when producing revenues, must produce at least some ammount. If don't you must pay a minimum tax (i think that's also 7.92%).

Yes, you can get some kind of offshore office. They're located in especial zones in the city's and are known as Zona Franca. they I'll try to get more info about that in a cuple of days. bye !

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Hunter says on Dec 15, 2004, 04:03:

Caslug & viewpoint I don't know all the things you have to pay, I don't employ anybody directly on the books (never will), its way to much paperwork and hassle. I either pay them cash through friends/partners or they employ the people, I leave it for them to sort out.

Most things are best left to a trusted Colombian/s to sort out, you can pay them a small amount of money (in dollar terms) to sort out the problems, that mostly drive the westerners crazy.
Caslug it sounds like you are going to pay a lot, but its not if you know (or get somebody who knows) what you are doing, its just a lot of bullshit paperwork.

Unfortunatly Colombia is like most of Europe likes to create a lot of rules about employing people, which in the end just stops people taking on employees or taking them on by paying cash.

Hunter

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caslug says on Dec 15, 2004, 10:01:

paying cash?.. Is it a fairly standard practice in COL? I don't mind doing that, and i would pay a little more for the trouble free. But could you rent a office, put in phone lines, etc., without being register as a business in COL. I hate to have have people work out of a apartment.
Thanks guys!

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mrxcol says on Dec 15, 2004, 10:24:

Of course you can rent a local and get phone lines. But according to your usage the telco and utilities company will take you up to a commercial level of service and will charge you as so. Also it' won't be easy to find people with good levels of english and have them work without social security (having an integral salary). This people is educated and would prefer other jobs.

But working as a company without registering would be risky. Anytime, ayone could give a tip to Police and they would seize the office goods. It could be anybody, say your neighbours.

it sound like a lot of things and paperwork to be done. But it's not as much as it sounds. I have had many business and have done this lots of times. Some business broke and some are running. In fact shutting down a company is as hard as opening it (don't get afraid).

It sounds a bit ugly when pleople say they want to setup a company in another country (to want to earn money is ok) but don't want to completely follow the guidelines that country. You wouldn't like to have a foreigner go get money in your country and don't respect your local laws no matter how stupid or boring the be. For example, i consider the zoning rules in USA (not being able to have a store in a residential neighborhood) very dissapointing and against a community growing. Also i consider it's very hard to get an employee in a cuntry where it's so easy to get sued by an employee for almost any reason ("i'm getting paid less than the average, i'm being treated in a racist way, i'm not given my usual work tools", etc"). But when i established a business there i complied with the rules.

As said before, it's not as hard at it sound. I fact you can manage to get the paperwork done in 2 days. The firemen and healt office visits are way too easy. Just pay about US$ 3 for the visits and someday in the next month they'll arrive and give advices. And having happy employees is better than anything.

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webmanco says on Dec 16, 2004, 07:28:

Voip is the way Click here for recent article on the callcenter business in Colombia, I heard AT&T retired its callcenter from Colombia, some of the best call centers are located in the Centro Empresarial Dorado Plaza in Bogotá (Avenida El Dorado No 84A-55)

A lot has been said about voip on PBH, I wanted to give my two cents.

Gateways with ethernet conectivity don`t required to have the pc on.
USB devices do require the pc to be on, since they get the electricity from the CPU and work with softphones.
Hardware
Ata 186

827 4V

Sipura, a pioner on Ata boxes
Grandstream
Inernet Phone Wizard
Cyberphones
Differetnt networking an voip devices
Linksys bought by Cisco
Leadtek

Voip minutes providers
Net2phone
Phoneserve, I do represent them in Colombia
Vonage
Dialpad
Packet8
The freeway, my number is 291433
Detathree or Iconnecthere

Hopefully I will have my own website bilingual by next year
Web & Punto

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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caslug says on Dec 16, 2004, 09:35:

Great article web.. kinda what i suspect w/ the call center in COL. My next trip down, i'll research more on setting everything up.

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ACBlessing says on Dec 17, 2004, 01:35:

Webmanco Do you have a business in Colombia?


Alex Blessing, Spokane, WA, USA
alex at acblessing.com,MSN Messenger
www.acblessing.com

Just plain poor

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YEP says on Dec 17, 2004, 03:00:

Webmanco .... and there's www.skype.com too ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------- Just another scandinavian getting ready to explore South America

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YEP says on Dec 17, 2004, 03:01:

Webmanco .... and there's www.skype.com too ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------- Just another scandinavian getting ready to explore South America

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YEP says on Dec 17, 2004, 03:09:

Webmanco .... and there's www.skype.com too ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------- Just another scandinavian getting ready to explore South America

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YEP says on Dec 17, 2004, 03:12:

Bummer Sorry .... browser played me a little trick ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------- Just another scandinavian getting ready to explore South America

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webmanco says on Dec 17, 2004, 03:19:

Thanks for reminding me YEP I find Skype Created by same people who create Kazza, has good sound quality but some how while talking it slows down the pc. And for using skype you still need to have the pc on. Most USB phones are now working with Skype.


85 Friends of Colombia and colombians all over the world

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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YEP says on Dec 17, 2004, 04:24:

Another thing on skype
Works with linux too.

As for the slowing down .... you can get hardware solutions that takes of the load on your PC.

There's quite a few client/server solutions around for linux (= free to get and install). The hardware I've read about also work in a linux enviroment ;-)

------------------------------------------------------------------- Just another scandinavian getting ready to explore South America

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