Small office phone system

[roydmoorian]

Here goes ....

We are coming to the end of a "Siemens" telephone lease and have found out that the secondary rental will be as much as the primary rental. WTF ! !

I am open to suggestions as to how we should progress, we have 1 analogue line with broadband and 2 pairs of ISDN2e lines (originally installed pre broadband days to get a reasonable internet speed).

The guys who have done our system maintenance for the last 2 years have come up with a plan to replace the equipment going forward for 6 years and then we own it outright.

We would have 2 x desk phones plus 2 portable phones on our base number and a seperate FAX number as at present and a premicell, And of course the analogue with uncapped broadband calls all for the princely sum of £149.19 a month including all UK calls:|

The finance package for the equipment would be around half of that £149.19 and included in it, all line rentals and UK call charges would be covered.

We pride ourselves on answering calls promptly and in person as we believe that if a client is needing an urgent sameday courier job doing the last thing they need is having to leave an answerphone message.

We are about 3 miles from our local exchange with the final 500 metres of 5 pair cable being buried on our property and also serving 2 other properties along the way.

If anyone could let me have some suggestions as to how we should proceed I would be most grateful.

 

[chrishankinson]

How about functionality? Do you have any specific requirements? Auto attendants and voicemail for example? Any remote working facility (or if it would be desirable).

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Look at voip!

Ideally, get 2 standard phone lines and ADSL on each - 1 ADSL for the office (assuming that is what you have at the moment) and one for VoIP/telephone system.

Migrate you phone numbers to a VoIP provider (they will post soon!) - £10 to migrate/port, the £2 per number, per month.

You then have 2 options - use a virtual PBX, which the VoIP providers can offer - the cost will depend on your features, but can be from a few quid a week.

Option 2 is to have your own PBX on site, which you can also add the analogue lines into, if you want (I would use one for a fall over circuit and one for fax!).

The total monthly costs would be:
Phone lines - 2x £15
ADSL - 2x £15-30 (depends on service/supplier)
Numbers - £2 per month each
Additional PBX features - variable, but probably £5-15 month for a lot (IVR, announcements, extensions etc)
OR
PBX hardware - from £0 (if you use and old, but good, PC or server + +/-£100 for card to connect phone lines ) to several hundred quid, plus some support costs.

 

[leemason]

£150.00 per month is a hell of an expense for four extensions. I'd also suggest looking at VoIP. It's a sound idea by "consultant" to have separate ADSL lines for normal Internet and VoIP.

You can get standard VoIP handsets for about £60.00+VAT and VoIP/DECT portable handsets for about £75.00+VAT (both one off costs). Many VoIP providers will provide a broadband service better suited to VoIP and these can cost from about £25.00+VAT per month.

As already mentioned you can transfer your existing numbers to the VoIP service. For FAX I'd suggest a FAX to e-mail service (and e-mail to FAX) so that you don't need a separate FAX line/machine.

VoIP not only gives you cost savings all round but can provide a much higher level of functionality that a traditional phone system. You can get functions like:

1. Hunt/pickup groups
2. Follow-me to other lines, number, inc. mobile
3. Voicemail
4. Call recording
5. Recorded announcements
6. Call queuing

And many more.

You won't find too many VoIP providers who will give unlimited call contracts but you will find inclusive minutes contracts. However once you factor in much cheaper calls I still think you can cut that monthly bill in half (depending upon the number of calls you are making).

 

[simplesimon86]

i trailled voip a few years back - it gave me hell!!!

nothing but problems - has moved forward now??

may be interested to venture into it again now we have an LL

 

[Posilan]

i trailled voip a few years back - it gave me hell!!!

VOIP has moved on considerably in recent times.

If you were having problems now, i'd suggest it's either the VOIP provider, the equipment or the quality of the internet connection.

I've seen people in the past complain about VOIP when using a free "softphone" installed on a malware riddled PC connecting via a slow ADSL connection which is max'd out by Internet traffic.

Get the right equipment, a decent provider and a good stable connection and you won't look back.

Steve

 

[simplesimon86]

VOIP has moved on considerably in recent times.

If you were having problems now, i'd suggest it's either the VOIP provider, the equipment or the quality of the internet connection.

I've seen people in the past complain about VOIP when using a free "softphone" installed on a malware riddled PC connecting via a slow ADSL connection which is max'd out by Internet traffic.

Get the right equipment, a decent provider and a good stable connection and you won't look back.

Steve

hmm may well do that - iv seen a chap on here a few times - but cant think of their name, does any one know?

 

[Posilan]

hmm may well do that - iv seen a chap on here a few times - but cant think of their name, does any one know?

CJD from Voipfone? Yep - he'll be able to sort you out.

Steve

 

[leemason]

hmm may well do that - iv seen a chap on here a few times - but cant think of their name, does any one know?

CJD. He runs voipfone. If you have a Leased Line then give it another go. Assuming your bandwidth it not maxed out you should fine it much better. Go for a decent handset as well though!

 

[simplesimon86]

thats the one - ill track him down. thanks

 

[cjd]

That's ok, i'll turn myself in

To be honest, you're best advised to talk to one of our support staff, they get really peed off when I get involved because I bluff quite well but having been turfed off support a few years ago they know a lot more than I do now - and anyway it's their day job.

Give them a call 0207 043 5555 they take you through the options - they support not sales.

 

[rbw91]

We are about 3 miles from our local exchange

Dont buy VoIP.

It will be as reliable as a mobile phone with only 1 bar of reception.

Unless your 8Mb ADSL line line runs at at least 6Mb throughput, then it won't be reliable enough.

Unless you have FTTC services available that is.

If you don't and are that far from the exchange then you buy VoIP at your own peril.

I work for a Carrier grade VoIP provider - it won't work.

Although able to supply you with this service, I have a "No-Bid". I refuse to let you buy my product because of the length of your line.

Its amazing how many providers dont tell you the truth they just hope it works after you have been tied into a contract.

 

[cjd]

Now that is, Tier 1, Layer 7, Carrier Grade, bollox.

Congrats.

 

[Posilan]

Unless your 8Mb ADSL line line runs at at least 6Mb throughput, then it won't be reliable enough.

Crikey - what codec do you use? MPEG-2?

Steve

 

[cart-com]

i,m 4.5 miles from my exchange i get 3.1mb down and 890 up. I use voip (a windows based pbx system) works great

Dont buy VoIP.

It will be as reliable as a mobile phone with only 1 bar of reception.

Unless your 8Mb ADSL line line runs at at least 6Mb throughput, then it won't be reliable enough.

Unless you have FTTC services available that is.

If you don't and are that far from the exchange then you buy VoIP at your own peril.

I work for a Carrier grade VoIP provider - it won't work.

Although able to supply you with this service, I have a "No-Bid". I refuse to let you buy my product because of the length of your line.

Its amazing how many providers dont tell you the truth they just hope it works after you have been tied into a contract.

 

[leemason]

VoIP quality it not all about speed. It's also about stability and contention. A stable connection will provide great VoIP performance even if it's not fast. The slowest part of the connection has an influence though. For ADSL this is the upstream so there is no point (in terms of VoIP) having an 8Mb connection if the upstream side is only 512Kb as this is the limiting factor.

As an example Fluidata offer a VOX 0.8 circuit which is a balanced ADSL offering 800Kb in each direction. Because it's balanced and very stable it provides excellent VoIP performance.

The other aspect is contention. If VoIP is contending with other data you will notice a loss of quality (clicks and loss of words, possibly disconnected calls). Even with a router that can support prioritisation of traffic this will break down at certain levels of activity.

in terms of cart-com 890Kb upstream is pretty good for VoIP. The downstream 3.1Mb is a lot less important.

 

[andy@telecomhelpcouk]

VoIP over public Internet?

Packet loss, peering, variation delay, sync rate, throughput.

Don't forget us.

 

[leemason]

VoIP over public Internet?

Packet loss, peering, variation delay, sync rate, throughput.

Don't forget us.

That's obviously why millions of people around the world are using it!

But seriously, the quality of your Internet connection is a critical factor in the quality of the voice traffic. You can get very good quality voice over the Internet, but not with a rubbish ADSL connection.

 

[cjd]

A decent provider doesn't send calls over the public internet. We have private peering with pretty much every ISP in the UK and our own broadband connects directly to our gateway.

When people talk about VoIP over the public internet, it mostly means Skype and the smaller service providers.

 

[andy@telecomhelpcouk]

I use voip (a windows based pbx system) works great

3 cheers for 3CX!

Andy

 

[leemason]

3 cheers for 3CX!

Andy

Or Swyx possibly?

 

[andy@telecomhelpcouk]

Don't be ridiculous, no-one can afford Swyx.

Andy

 

[anjie2012]

Choosing the best telephone system for a small business is very important to promote convenience and effectiveness to its services. There are different ways in order to meet the best telephone system in your small business.

 

[ChyrillStucker]

Here goes ....

We are coming to the end of a "Siemens" telephone lease and have found out that the secondary rental will be as much as the primary rental. WTF ! !

I am open to suggestions as to how we should progress, we have 1 analogue line with broadband and 2 pairs of ISDN2e lines (originally installed pre broadband days to get a reasonable internet speed).

The guys who have done our system maintenance for the last 2 years have come up with a plan to replace the equipment going forward for 6 years and then we own it outright.

We would have 2 x desk phones plus 2 portable phones on our base number and a seperate FAX number as at present and a premicell, And of course the analogue with uncapped broadband calls all for the princely sum of £149.19 a month including all UK calls:|

The finance package for the equipment would be around half of that £149.19 and included in it, all line rentals and UK call charges would be covered.

We pride ourselves on answering calls promptly and in person as we believe that if a client is needing an urgent sameday courier job doing the last thing they need is having to leave an answerphone message.

We are about 3 miles from our local exchange with the final 500 metres of 5 pair cable being buried on our property and also serving 2 other properties along the way.

If anyone could let me have some suggestions as to how we should proceed I would be most grateful.

I would suggest you to go for Hosted PBX VOIP. You do not need anything additional for your business. You will just need to have phones. Since your requirements are small, that’s why I am not suggesting you to go for an on-site PBX. You can get voicemail and many other advanced features through this system at a very less price. You can take a look at services offered by The Real PBX. I have been using the same for my business and I am pretty happy with this system. You can even get DID or toll-free number to impress your clients. I am sure this system can provide you with reliable support for answering business calls promptly. The best part is that you can get this system up and running at $9.95/month (calling costs are excluded but are quite negligible in comparison to the PSTN call rates). You can take a look at their services or even take a free trial to analyze the quality of service. I did the same and found the system easily configurable and reliable. So, I opted for it.

 

[leemason]

Don't be ridiculous, no-one can afford Swyx.

Andy

Interesting you should say that. I am currently involved in a tender process for a server based phone system for 20-25 people and had two Windows server based system quotes. One for 3CX and one for Swyx. There was very little difference between the two quotes.

 

[Jet Virtual]

Have you thought of using a virtual phone system.
These days you can have a virtual phone system do as much if not more than a regular phone system ...

Best of Luck!

Daniel