VOIP Phone System

[richbrowncardiff]

Hi All,

 

Sorry I'm sure this has probably has been asked loads of times...

 

I'm looking to get rid of our very expensive Samsung phone system and go voip.

 

I was going to keep our ISDN lines for the time being but wanted to check if I'm correct in thinking I need

 

1. Lines (Presently ISDN)

2. Voip Gateway (To use ISDN Lines)

3. PBX (Was looking at 3cx or FreePbx)

4. Handsets (Was looking at Yealink and Unifi UVP)

 

Am I missing anything ?

Thanks as always !

[MatthewL]

I did read something about ISDN been switched off in the near future so you might want to factor that in if you are looking to upgrade the system.

 

Don't think so off the top of my head. A friend of mine has just rolled out some Grandstream GXP2170 with FreePBX and the handsets were quite cheap compared to others and have alot of features with them. Might be worth looking at.

[FN-GM]

Yealink handsets are fully supported on FreePBX so that would be a good combination.

 

Is it worth investing in equipment to use with ISDN if they won't be live in the long term?

[Katy]

I did read something about ISDN been switched off in the near future so you might want to factor that in if you are looking to upgrade the system.

The switch off date is supposedly 2025 so not imminent but worth factoring in.

 

We replaced our PBX recently, went with Toshiba (unfortunately as they have now abandoned all UK telephony) but we kept existing ISDN:

 

ISDN30 -> ISDN/SIP gateway -> Toshiba IP PBX

 

We are halfway through moving off ISDN onto SIP and it was fairly easy to do as you just point the PBX at the new SIP server. Outbound calls went live last month, inbound calls go live next week *fingers crossed*

 

I think the RRP of the ISDN/SIP gateway we had was £800 or so, no idea why we did it that way (I wasn't involved in the phone system project) but if I was doing it now I'd have switched over to SIP at the same time and saved the money.

[localzuk]

We faced a similar decision here recently. We are moving from Asterisk/FreePBX to 3CX. From Grandstream handsets to Yealink. And for the lines, we're going from analog lines to SIP trunks.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yeh we faced a similar decision here and could not go down the free pbx route as I didn't have enough time to really get to grips with it and the old contract end was looming fast. Ended up going with a FTTC connection on existing line with 8 SIP trunks and a Mitel system.

[speakercon]

I setup a FreePBX system here, and used a Sangoma vega gateway to connect our ISDN2 lines. We used refurbished Cisco phones and the whole system works very well.

 

Do you have ISDN2 or ISDN30?

 

If your interested in FreePBX, Sangoma have just released a commercially supported version called PBXact.

 

Sangoma PBXact UC System - VoIPon Solutions

 

I've also used 3CX before which works very well and is available through a partner for support.

 

Feel free to PM for more info.

Edited February 7, 2017 by speakercon

[richbrowncardiff]

Thanks all. I did hear about ISDN getting turned off but its not immediate and we don't have a good enough Connection for SIP at the moment. Currently got 4 x ISDN2 lines. Thanks @speakercon the Sangoma looks like it will fit the bill nicely!

[FN-GM]

Just a heads up. Sangoma phones are Yealink phones with another badge. Sometimes cheaper to get Yealink.

[PotNoodleTech]

Thanks all. I did hear about ISDN getting turned off but its not immediate and we don't have a good enough Connection for SIP at the moment. Currently got 4 x ISDN2 lines. Thanks @speakercon the Sangoma looks like it will fit the bill nicely!

 

They upgraded an existing line in the server room for us to FTTC which gave a 70mb down 25mb up which was plenty. Its way cheaper/quarter than our old ISDN lines and comes with a free call package which means we effectively have so many free minutes per month, we shouldn't ever need to pay for local or mobile calls, which saves even more money/quarter. It's really worth looking into.

[speakercon]

The vega 50 is ideal for you then, it took me about an hour of trial and error with the settings to get it working correctly but it's worked perfectly since installation.

[mrbios]

Just a heads up. Sangoma phones are Yealink phones with another badge. Sometimes cheaper to get Yealink.

 

Just to add to this, the sangoma phones are also buggy as **** don't go near their phones (PBX is fine though!)

[CAWJames]

We went from a NEC Aspire with ISDN to a FreePBX/Asterisk system, initially keeping the ISDN with an ISDN30 PCIe card in the server we used for the new PBX, to receive calls, and sip trunks to make calls. BT actually rang us to ask why we had stopped making calls, reverse bill shock methinks We then ordered our range of numbers to be transferred to SIP and cancel the ISDN30. We now have our 100MB leased line with a dedicated 1MB converged slice for the calls. this is done on the leased line managed router rather than on our own router, ie we have separate gateways for internet traffic and phone calls on our router.

 

We buy second user Cisco 7941 phones for circa £25 each, really cost effective phone system, we now have over a hundred extensions. We even have the second line set to auto-answer, so we can use it for a lockdown announcement or paging(bit of scripting on the server, responds to a number being rung, the "pin", then the server checks for all active paging lines, and sends a prerecorded announcement to all those phone, really creepy hearing my voice coming out of 100 phone speakers simultaneously though!!)

[Progress]

We are just moving to a TalkStraight/Schoolsbroadband option as we are with them for Broadband/Filtering, they have just upgraded their VOIP package offer. Looks very competitive with free phones on the 5 year option.

Looks great for Primary schools - Example price - Ordering 1 line, 1 reception phone, 3 extra voip handsets, a wireless handset, includes all local/national/mobile calls.

One off cost of £607 with a Monthly cost of £38.75 all in.

[Edu-IT]

We are just moving to a TalkStraight/Schoolsbroadband option as we are with them for Broadband/Filtering, they have just upgraded their VOIP package offer. Looks very competitive with free phones on the 5 year option.

Looks great for Primary schools - Example price - Ordering 1 line, 1 reception phone, 3 extra voip handsets, a wireless handset, includes all local/national/mobile calls.

One off cost of £607 with a Monthly cost of £38.75 all in.

New or reconditioned equipment? @SchoolsBroadband

[SchoolsBroadband]

Brand new equipment. We can use Cisco, Yaelink, polycom, Panasonic and a few more phone types

[RobFuller]

Anyone using Skype for Business as a full phone system with handsets and PSTN access? Wouldn't mind hearing your config and experiences.

[Progress]

Sorry for the delay - It's new...Yealink T19P Handsets.

[1066girl]

Just gone through this exercise. We went VOIP using 3CX. We have a large system and so use a partner for support (I believe we might be one of the largest school installs in UK). We use Yealink phones, a mix of T42s and T46G deskphones and W52P DECT. We increased the number of extensions and purchased a load of DDIs. We give an extension to all staff, even teachers without physical handsets and they get their voicemails through outlook.

 

I can't emphasize how good the system is and how easy it is to setup and support. Although not essential, we used PoE switches so this was a big cost, however, we are projecting a £30k revenue saving on our previous ISDN/BT solution year on year.

 

If you want a provider recommendation, PM me.

 

Thanks

Edited April 20, 2017 by 1066girl

[RobFuller]

we are projecting a £30k revenue saving on our previous ISDN/BT solution year on year.

 

That must be some system.

[TechMonkey]

That must be some system.

 

I can't remember the real term figure but we are saving about 55-65% on ours. We went with 3CX as well.

 

1066Girl, can I ask how many physical handsets and extensions you ended up with? We have 148 extensions with 48 handsets (the rest being staff virtual extensions).

[RobFuller]

I'm pricing up a system for 70 physical handsets and 200 extensions, I thought it was small...

[DrCheese]

What internet connections are you putting in for the 3cx solutions? We've been recommended either an SDSL connection or as our area might not get it, a EFM connection. I could cheap out and use our existing connection for it but I want to keep it seperate really.

[localzuk]

We're using existing connections here across our trust. Been trialling this setup with our new nursery for a while and they've not had any issues (beyond teething problems due to my learning both 3CX and our new firewall system).

[TechMonkey]

What internet connections are you putting in for the 3cx solutions? We've been recommended either an SDSL connection or as our area might not get it, a EFM connection. I could cheap out and use our existing connection for it but I want to keep it seperate really.

 

Using our leased line. The only thing we did was contacted BT to have them SIP enable it. Not sure if this was needed but it was free and had a lead time so we did it in preparation.