Anthony Karibian: VoIP, Business and Communications

Anthony Karibian is the founder and CEO of bOnline. With over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, Karibian has a history of successful ventures, including founding XLN Telecom and Euroffice. He launched the bOnline VoIP business back in 2016 and we’ve gone from strength to strength ever since.

The bOnline team is proud to offer award-winning VoIP, broadband and related services to small businesses across the country. We basically make it super easy for small business heroes to switch to us so they can start saving money on their calls and internet costs whilst still getting outstanding customer service.

We focus entirely on sole traders, micro and growing businesses that are moving from outdated, expensive landline systems to modern, cost-effective digital solutions. Landlines are due to be switched off permanently from the end of 2026, which has meant we’ve seen huge growth in customers looking for reliable, high quality VoIP services packed with features at half the price of legacy services.

Everything we do is centred around our four pillars which are:

1. Easy Setup: Setup takes just 2 minutes entirely online and you don’t need any technical knowledge. No engineer visits are needed either.
2. Smart System: Our VoIP digital phone systems come with more than 45 features tailored to meet small business needs.
3. Reliable Support: We’re proud of our award-winning customer service and no downtime guarantee.
4. Fair Pricing: Why should only large companies and corporations benefit from high quality products and lower pricing? We believe even the smallest of start-ups should benefit too so our prices are some of the lowest around.

Earlier this year we launched our latest product, VoIP3.0 where we essentially took all the best bits of our previous VoIP2.0 product and built a new platform from scratch. VoIP3.0 offers a zero-touch, fully automated experience so customers can manage their setup and services online within minutes. Thanks to this extra automation, our support team can focus on helping users get the best from the advanced features like call flows, analytics, call recording, CRM integration and more.

Find out more about a free trial with bOnline here >>>

 

How and When Did Jour Journey Into Entrepreneurialism Start?

 

My journey into entrepreneurship started shortly after business school, when I joined a US Internet Strategy consultancy started up by ex-Mckinsey partners with Tech backgrounds. I was among the first 10 employees in 1998 and already at that time we were all working remotely from our homes.  

My first project was to work on the Internet strategy of the global leader in Office Supplies.  At the time, the Internet was booming and startups were popping up everywhere and everyone was  itching to start something or experiencing “FOMO”.  

The startup I had joined was now driving a roll-up strategy of six other firms and ready to IPO within a month. It was exciting particularly having been awarded share options.  

About the same time, my brother had met the owner of a UK-based office supplies buying association and they wanted to learn more about the online office supplies market. After our first conference call, it was all planned out, we would each do our research and if all made sense we would start an online office supplies company next month. Within a month, I took a leave of absence and the three of us launched Euroffice and I was able to persuade the co-founder of Staples to join our Board.   

 

What Attracted You To VoIP and Phone Systems in Particular?

 

Back in 2003, while we were growing Euroffice, we received an interesting sales call from a phone company called Onebill Telecoms. It was at the start of Ofcom’s Telecoms industry deregulation which was opening up a massive market opportunity to resell line rental and calls to businesses and consumers. We talked to a few small business owners and realised they were mostly unhappy with BT but they had no other options as BT had a monopoly on phone line rental.  

The opportunity was massive, we met with Onebill and later on, Christian and I decided to leave Euroffice to start up XLN Telecom as a telecoms reseller to small businesses. By then, we had already secured VC funding for Euroffice and my brother was able to run it without us.  

We started XLN by outsourcing most of our operations to Onebill. Christian ran field sales and I set up the entire operations and also telesales. And within 5 years, XLN became a big success with 130,000 small business customers on long term contracts and £60M in revenue. Only BT had more small business customers at the time. Within a few years, we had built up a fully automated operation and even acquired Onebill’s customer base.    

Eventually, we sold the business to private equity fund ECI and I decided it was time to exit and start a software company. I knew that landlines would reach the end of life soon and succeeding in VoIP would require a different organisation, one with a software mindset creating new products rather than a sales organisation reselling someone else’s product, as most do today. 

I initially set up bOnline as a DIY Websites platform for small businesses with plans to add on VoIP and other IT services. But once we launched VoIP in 2016, I realised we were onto something much bigger than just a phone service. VoIP opens up so many possibilities for small businesses to be more productive and professional. Our basic service allows small businesses to sound more professional by setting business hours with professional closed and open greetings and also to work remotely using phone apps to never miss a call.   

Today, we are taking it much further with CRM integration, Call Recording with AI transcription summaries and sentiment analysis, SMS/WhatsApp integration and much more. It’s very exciting to know that we can put powerful technology at the fingertips of our small business heroes and yet make it so easy and seamless to benefit from it without the need to be tech guru’s or hire IT staff.  

 

What Problems Are You Solving in VoIP and Broadband With bOnline?

 

As discussed above, we are solving so many problems for our customers but most importantly we are doing it in a way that’s very easy to understand and use so that small businesses can take advantage of technology without having to hire expensive IT professionals. 

With VoIP, we are solving a wide range of problems small business owners: 

1. Digital call quality that’s far more reliable than PSTN copper lines
2. Work remotely and answer landline calls from anywhere and any device.
3. Automatically play professional greetings based on open/close hours.
4. Call menu’s to triage inbound calls by department or team.
5. Call flows to manage customer calls with call queues, hold music, diverts…
6. Call recording to keep a record of calls for verification or dispute resolution.
7. Sentiment analysis to highlight bad or good calls for training. 
8. WhatsApp integration for customers to communicate via omni-channels.
9. CRM integration to pop-up caller details to save time and improve service.

 

What Are The Specific Challenges of Connecting People Using The Internet?

 

Connecting people via the internet comes with a number of challenges. These include gaps in infrastructure and restricted access, particularly in rural or underserved areas where reliable internet isn’t available. On top of that, there are language barriers, cultural differences and varying levels of digital literacy that can add further challenges.

Cybersecurity and privacy concerns also pose risks, as users need to feel safe sharing information online. Additionally, the digital divide can lead to inequality, as those without access or technical skills may be left behind as the world becomes increasingly connected.

 

Does The Fact That VoIP is Not Yet Widely Adopted in The Same Way Landlines Have Been Make Things Trickier?

 

VoIP is widely available in the enterprise and mid market segments but it’s not the case with micro and small businesses where we estimate over 95% are still using legacy PSTN phone lines.  

Small businesses do not have technical expertise nor can they afford IT staff and therefore are unlikely to replace a simple analog phone line for a sophisticated VoIP phone system with complicated installations and user manuals.  VoIP has always been expensive to install and to operate and most solutions were never built for small businesses.  

At bOnline, we are trying to change this perception of VoIP being complicated by offering a VoIP product that was created from day one with a focus on the needs of small business owner.  It’s taken four years of iterations and a 3rd generation platform that we finally launched in January 2024.  Our VoIP platform is zero-touch with 100% automation and self-sign-up and self service giving the small business owner full control of a simple interface to manage their phone system with onboarding and amazing support from our experts.  .  

But most importantly, we built a system that is not only easy to use and very reliable but also with features such as Instant Demo and Free Trial to give the small business owner the chance to try it and experience the superior call quality, reliability and everything about VoIP digital phones that make them better than legacy phones. 

Prospects can make and receive calls from a web-based phone within 10 seconds.  Alternatively, they can opt for a Free Trial and within 2 minutes set up a fully functioning phone system with professional greetings, business hours, call flows, etc.  All this is done with assistance from an bOnline onboarding expert on call to ensure the small business owner is in good hands. 

We are now helping 60 to 100 small businesses every day to transition to digital telephony and to realise massive benefits and savings, while also future-proofing their businesses for the 2027 Switch-off.  

We’re proud to be able to make life easier for so many small business heroes. 

 

With Landlines Being Switched Off in 2027, Do You Think Most People Really Know What this Will Mean For Work and Personal Use?

 

This is an industry-wide challenge because there is very low awareness about the 2027 Switch-off when BT shuts off the legacy phone network. Unlike with digital TV, there are no national campaigns run by the Government while BT and the incumbents are all happy with the status quo – selling copper phone lines at extortionate prices.   

This is particularly impacting small businesses which are most dependent on their landline phone numbers and are unaware and not prepared for the potential impact of losing their phone numbers when it’s all switched off. 

But this is where bOnline plays a critical role, we focus on making it so easy for small businesses to make this transition from legacy to a VoIP digital phone service with no disruption while keeping their same phone numbers. We even provide instant demo’s to test call quality within 10 seconds or a full trial with phone apps that takes 2 minutes to set up.  

With any demo or trial, a VoIP consultant calls the trial prospect to assist and answer questions. When a customer is ready to sign up, we provide a 30-minute onboarding service to ensure the small business owner learns to make the most of their new digital experience. 

Our VoIP digital phone is far more reliable than an old copper landline and works on any device from anywhere with digital HD call quality plus 45+ call features. Best of all, it is still 50% cheaper than legacy phone lines so a real win-win for small business owners.  

Unfortunately, BT have delayed the switch-off from 2025 to 2027 so there is less urgency for small business owners to move to digital. The challenge remains to spread the word that they are much better off with VoIP and should not waste time or money by delaying the transition until the last minute.  

 

What Have Been Your Biggest Challenges to Date?

 

Our biggest challenge to date has been to be able to bring VoIP to the small business market successfully.  

The odds are stacked against you for the following reasons: 

• High cost to acquire customers – the market is highly fragmented and difficult to reach
• Low spend – small business owners are price sensitive and the average monthly spend is low at £20-30/mo
• High cost to serve – small business owners expect great service
• High churn – new or small businesses have a high rate of failure 

Early on, we recognised that the only way we could make this work was to become a Software/Data company rather than your traditional Telco reseller. We needed to build a great product that was easy to use with high automation coupled with self-signup and self-service in order to make it all work out.    

It was clear that none of the existing phone providers were doing it right. The incumbents were all happy with the status quo – ie. squeezing every bit out of hundred year old copper phone lines for extortionate prices. The typical Telco providers were mostly sales organisations reselling the same Cisco Webex enterprise product to mid-sized clients. The VoIP providers were US software companies trying to sell their “one-size-fits-all” enterprise products across the entire market from consumers, small businesses to corporate customers. Hence, why such a small fraction of the micro/small business market had adopted VoIP.  

Our software/data mindset along with our laser focus on the small business space have enabled us to finally achieve product/market fit. Since January 2024, we are now on our fourth iteration of Self-signup because we analyse five different sources of data to enable us to keep fine tuning our product to make it easier and more useful for our customers.   

Our Net Promoter Score on our latest VoIP3.0 platform is 60 compared with 10 for our VoIP2.0 platform and churn has also halved. The only way we could improve was to ensure all our management team are proficient in data analysis and python and we avoid recruiting anyone with prior Telco experience as they would not fit into our organisation. 

 

What’s Next For You and bOnline?

 

Our goal is to help hundreds of thousands of small businesses make a seamless transition to digital. We’re also planning to expand our services across Europe in countries that will be undergoing a similar disruption as they shut down their national legacy phone networks. 

We are very excited to bring such beneficial technology to so many small businesses and to be able to make such an impact on so many livelihoods.