Reaching one named person
Direct numbers and extensions so a technical caller gets the one person who can answer them.
Read about virtual systems
Rochester, NY
Business VoIP in Rochester, NY
585 covers Rochester and nothing has been laid over it. This page is different from the rest of the set in one respect: we are about seventy miles away, which is the closest we get to any city except our own. It still does not make us a Rochester business, and it is worth explaining why we will not say otherwise.
Disclosure: AldoMedia is a paid affiliate of Unitel Voice. If you sign up through a link on this page we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend what we would set up for our own clients, and we say plainly below who should not buy this.
One code, and it still means something
585 was split off from 716 in November 2001, taking Rochester and the country west and south of it. Nothing has been laid over it since, so seven digits still reach across town and anything printed in the last twenty years is a complete number.
That is unusual for a metro this size and it leaves the digits doing real work. In an overlay city the code says only that a line was ordered recently. 585 says this region, which is a fact a caller can use.
Keep a 585 number if you hold one. Moving it to a different provider is called porting, it is routine, and it is on business phone numbers. That is genuinely the end of the area code discussion here, which is why the rest of this page is about something more useful.
The nearest we get to local, and why it changes nothing
Every other page on this site says plainly that we are not in the city it is about. This one has to be more careful, because the honest position is more awkward. AldoMedia works from one office in Buffalo. Rochester is roughly an hour away along the lake, which by the standards of this set is next door.
It would be easy to lean on that. Plenty of firms do, and the phrasing writes itself: a claim to have been looking after this city for years, a claim to be the local Western New York outfit, and so on. We are not going to, for two reasons that are worth stating rather than implying.
The first is that it would be untrue in the way that matters. We do not keep an office here, we are not down the road, and a business in this city that needs somebody physically present within the hour should hire somebody in this city. Being an hour away is not the same as being here, and the difference shows up on exactly the day it matters.
The second is that proximity is not the product anyway. A phone system is software running from data centers a long way from either of us. Nothing about it improves because the person who helped you set it up is sixty miles closer than the last one. Our being nearby is a fact about us, not a benefit to you, and a page that sells it as a benefit has started lying in a small way that usually grows.
What does actually change at this distance
One thing, and it is worth naming precisely because the rest of it is honestly nothing. If something has to be done in a room, with hands, on hardware, the pool of people who will drive an hour for that is different from the pool who will drive four. That is a real difference and it is the only one.
So if what you need is somebody to physically handle equipment, that is a fair question to ask us and a fair question to ask anybody. What we would say either way is that most of what a modern phone service needs is done remotely, and a provider who insists on a visit for routine changes is telling you something about how their system works.
Everything else on this page is the same advice a business in Dallas would get, because the technology does not know where either of you is.
Who gains here
The working economy here runs on optics, imaging and precision instruments, healthcare and medical research, higher education, food production, and the engineering and professional firms attached to them. A great deal of it is business selling to business on a technical specification, and a fair amount of it sells well outside the region.
For that shape the phone's job is narrow: get a known caller to the one person who can answer a technical question, without a menu in the way. A direct number each, a rule that passes an unanswered call to a named colleague before voicemail, and a greeting short enough to be a courtesy. Virtual phone system and auto attendant and extensions cover both.
The consumer side of this city, the trades and services, wants the opposite and simpler thing: a person answering with a business name inside a few seconds, because a caller comparing three firms decides in that window.
Who should not bother: one person, one phone, customers who already reach you fine. That is a monthly cost against a problem you do not have, and we would rather write it here than after you have signed. And if your connection is unreliable, deal with that before the phones, because voice is less forgiving than anything else you run over a line. VoIP vs landline is the honest case for keeping copper.
The decisions behind the number
None of these are about Rochester, and none of them get better because we happen to be an hour away.
Keeping the front short
Menus and greetings, and why a known caller should not work through options.
Read about auto attendantThe number itself
Why a 585 number still carries information, and what porting one between providers involves.
Read about business numbersWhether to switch at all
The honest case for keeping a copper line, which still applies to some buildings and connections.
Read VoIP vs landline
Common questions
Rochester VoIP questions
You are in Buffalo. Does that make you local to us?
No, and we would rather say so. We work from one office in Buffalo, roughly an hour from here, which is nearer than we are to anywhere else on this site except our own city. It is still not an office in Rochester. If your requirement is somebody physically present the same morning, hire somebody here. If it is not, the distance is irrelevant, because the service runs from data centers a long way from both of us.
Does anything actually improve because you are an hour away rather than four?
One thing. If a job genuinely requires hands on hardware in a room, an hour is a distance people will travel and four is often not. That is the whole difference. Most of what a phone service needs is done remotely, and a provider who wants a site visit for a routine change has told you something about their system.
Is a second area code coming to 585?
Nothing has been laid over it and none has been announced. Downstate is a different picture, with several codes stacked on the same ground for years. If an overlay ever arrives here, no existing number changes, but every local call would need ten digits and anything printed with seven would become incomplete.
Ask us the awkward question first
Tell us what you actually need somebody present for. If the honest answer is that you want a local firm in Rochester, we will tell you that rather than talk you out of it.