Business VoIP
What it is, what it needs from your connection, and the honest trade you make.
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Business phones by state
Business VoIP in South Dakota
South Dakota is served by 605, and that single code covers the whole state. So the number you hand out here says South Dakota rather than naming a town, which quietly changes two decisions and leaves every other decision exactly where it was.
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 area code, the whole state
In most of the country an area code is shorthand for a city. Somebody sees the first three digits and places you within a few miles. That is not how it works here. South Dakota is served by 605, and a number beginning that way could be answered in Sioux Falls, in Rapid City, or at a shop three hours from either.
Two things follow, and they pull opposite ways.
The first is that you cannot signal a town with a phone number here. Your address, your website and the first line of your greeting do that work instead, which is a good argument for putting the town in the greeting.
The second is more useful. You also cannot accidentally look out of town. A 605 reads as local in Aberdeen and in Spearfish alike, so a business covering a lot of ground belongs everywhere it works without renting a second number to fake it.
The part that is the same as everywhere else
We would rather say this early than bury it. A VoIP phone system does not work differently in South Dakota than it does in Ohio or Oregon. The calls travel the same way, the handsets are the same handsets, the app is the same app, and there is no South Dakota edition of anything. A company selling you a state-specific phone system is selling you a page, not a product.
Three things genuinely are local, and they are the three this page is about: which number belongs on your truck, how far apart your people are when it rings, and what your internet does at the address where the phones will sit.
The product itself is explained from the beginning on the main business VoIP guide.
Local or toll-free, when local means the state
Everywhere else this question is muddy. Here it is unusually clean, because a 605 carries statewide recognition rather than city recognition.
- Selling inside South Dakota, a 605 is the strongest number you can put on a vehicle. It says one of us, over the entire state, and no toll-free number competes with that.
- Selling out of state, the same number tells a buyer in Minneapolis or Denver exactly where you are. Sometimes that is the pitch, because you want to be the South Dakota supplier. Sometimes it raises a question about distance in the first five seconds.
- Wanting both is normal. Keep the 605 for the people who know you, point a toll-free number at the same system for the people who do not, and let the greeting be identical either way.
Whatever you decide, do not retire a 605 you have had for years. Moving a number to a new provider is routine, and the reasons to keep it are the reasons it is painted on the door. More in business phone numbers.
Two time zones and a lot of road
The state runs across a time zone line, so its eastern and western halves are an hour apart. That is trivia until you set business hours. A greeting that switches to after-hours at five is switching at four for half your customers, or six, depending which end you built it from.
Distance does the rest. Plenty of businesses here cover counties rather than blocks: equipment dealers, agricultural services, contractors. The phone rings while somebody is two hours out and nowhere near a desk.
That argues for routing rather than for more lines. One number, one greeting, and rules deciding who it reaches at which hour and what happens when nobody picks up. An auto attendant handles the front of that and a mobile app the back of it.
Winter is the other reason to build those rules early. Roads close and offices sit empty for a day. A number you can point elsewhere in a minute makes that day cost nothing.
Who should not switch
There is a real no attached to this product, and on this much rural ground it applies more often than average.
- The connection is the whole question out here. Voice needs steady internet more than fast internet, and on a long rural link steadiness is the part that goes missing. In town that is a wait and a fix. On ground with no second provider to move to, it is a plain no.
The rest of the honest no, fax work, a live contract, the alarm panel or card reader on the same line and the address an emergency operator reads out, is set out on the main VoIP guide.
Common questions
South Dakota phone questions
Can I get a 605 number if the business is new?
Usually, but availability is a provider question rather than a state one, and it changes. Ask the provider to confirm a number before it goes anywhere permanent. Secure the number first, then order the signage and the vehicle lettering.
We work both halves of the state and the clocks do not match. How should after hours be set?
Set the schedule to the clock your customers keep rather than the one on the office wall, and accept that one end of the state will be an hour out. Then make the after-hours message say what happens next instead of only that you are closed.
Do we need a separate number for the western half of the state?
Almost never, because a 605 already reads as local everywhere inside South Dakota. A second number earns its place when you want to measure which advertisement produced a call, or when a branch needs reaching without the main greeting. That is routing, not geography.
Related guides
The general versions, without the state attached.
Toll-Free Numbers
What toll-free signals now that nobody pays by the minute, and when a 605 beats one outright.
Read about toll-freeAuto Attendant
The recorded greeting and the extensions behind it. Two people can have one.
How greetings workAlso: VoIP versus landline if you are weighing whether to keep the copper.
Coverage
A VoIP line runs over the internet, so there is no network to be at the edge of and no corner of the country where the service gets thin. That is why this map has no holes in it. The shading is not signal strength, it is how much has been written down: South Dakota has a guide of its own, and the darker states have a page for one or more of their cities as well.
- States with city pages
- States with a guide of their own
- The state you are reading about
Every state is linked. Business VoIP by state and city lists all fifty of them, and the 80 cities with a page, as ordinary links.
One number, the whole state
Look at the plans yourself, or tell us how calls reach you today. If your connection is the real problem, we will say that instead of selling you a phone system.