IP Phone system

[mdrabble]

We are looking to replace/upgrade our phone system and to save money we are looking to do as much as we can in house.

 

The current system is analogue, so all handsets (approx 50) will need replacing as cheaply as possible.

 

I'm looking at FreePBX as I have seen mentions of this on here so I figured why not give it a look see.

 

So for those using FreePBX, can you recommend IP phones for offices and also something for the main switchboard and any addons which you think are needed.

 

Many thanks

[Dos_Box]

Moving to hardware forum.

[localzuk]

My recommendation is 3CX with Yealink handsets. I ran FreePBX for a decade here, and whilst it is stable and good, the config is just not as easy/efficient as 3CX. Worth paying the small amount for the license.

[Davit2005]

+1 for 3cx. I've had better success with 3CX than FreePBX .

 

The user interface is much better, deploying phones is easy. Install 3cx on a Windows server, whilst you can use the Appliance and save the underlying OS license cost the admin of the server on top of windows OS is much easier if you aren't strong on Linux, like me.

[speakercon]

Freepbx user here, setup about a year ago all running smoothly with cisco spa 504g handsets. Reception have the sidecar accessory that provides 32 busy lamp field keys.

 

They don't appear to be the phone of choice when it comes to freepbx (or 3cx for that matter) but they work perfectly well and do everything needed and I have a supplier we get them from refurbished for £30 each.

 

I was very familiar with freepbx when I set this up so if you don't have any experience you may be better with 3cx and a partner although saying that you can get support from Voipon if you need it.

 

If you currently have analogue or ISDN lines you'll either need to move over to SIP trunks or get a gateway - we used to use a sangoma gateway for our ISDN lines untill we went SIP.

Edited October 31, 2017 by speakercon

[nathan3388]

we use elastix for about 5 years and it aint missed a heart beat. it is all web based and easy to setup we run about 150 phones across different sites to. We use the supplier Asterisk Hardware, Phone Systems, IP Phones & VoIP Equipment - VoIPon Solutions these are reasonable.

[Blue_Cookeh]

We use (and like) Avaya IP Office

[dgsmith]

Many threads over the years on this subject. When I was looking at the exact same thing 3 years ago, 3cx popped up continually and very favourably. I wrote and phoned a few folk (both on here and who I read were operating 3cx) which provided me with much more confidence to push forward with it.

Admittedly, the prices have gone up in the past few years, but for a rock solid, widely compatible system on a familiar Windows environment and a fraction of the cost of any other better known ones (*ahem* Avaya), it's definitely worth trialing with the totally functional free version (albeit without the bells and whistles).

[snagrat]

Yeastar and Yealink Phones here.

[mdrabble]

Thanks for the info everyone, will take a look at 3CX and yealink phones.

 

And if I have any question I’ll post on here

[bclarke]

3CX here too. Would recommend Tri-LAN IT for support as they are excellent. With the savings made on traditional phone system and lines there is still significant savings to be made even with a support contract. Not worth the time and trouble to maintain it myself with these savings.

[caffrey]

Interesting, we are about to do similar - the only things I don't really understand are SIP lines and porting existing numbers

 

We've been quoted for NEC, UNIFY (ex siemens) and Mitel VOIP but I really know nothing about telephone systems at all

 

To be fair I'm not sure I want to take anything else on!

[bclarke]

@caffrey no need to understand any of that if you sign up to a support contract with a good company as they do it all for you. It was a straightforward transition for us all in a a couple of days. We use a business broadband line for the SIP trunk. Calls are really cheap through it. I used to worry about people making long expensive calls abroad but even far flung countries are a few pence per minute to call.

 

Happy to chat to anyone on he phone about 3CX.

[mdrabble]

Looking at the different phones....... what is the difference between IP Phones and SIP Phones? If using 3CX which is better/suitable?

[caffrey]

I guess we could just use our existing telecomms suppler for the SIP trunk etc. and I can look into self installation

 

been quoted between £5500 and £6500 upto now, even if we did go external I'd probably still end up administrating it myself regardless...

[Bedders]

As a business that relies on our phone system, we use 3CX with support provided by Yellowgrid - Providing Local IT Support. I manage new extensions, external numbers, redirects, recordings etc. but we have the additional support for anything that is beyond me.

We used to have phones on the desks but now use Softphones (which is an application on the computer) combined with headsets or handsets through the PC's 3.5mm audio/mic ports. I know that we used to use Yealink but can't comment on them, since we retired them before I started here. Currently the extension is determined by who is logged on to the computer and provisioned via email.

 

At the Academy I used to work at we had a Mitel system with deskphones. These were good and easy to administer, and were set up and locked to an extension number before being placed on the desk.

 

I also spent a brief time working for a call centre that used Mitel deskphones which we had to log in to. Easy enough to do once you got in to the habit.

 

Feel free to PM me if you have any queries I can help with - I have only administered this 3CX system, but back when I was a junior tech my boss did run through the Mitel system with me at the time, and they both seem simple enough to use.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Bedders
Bad grammar.

[asm]

Avaya is also used here, no complaints, the handsets themselves have very easy to use functionality and barely (if ever) have any issues with them.

[Mistert89]

We have AVAYA IPO on ISDN30/8 but our newish model will only take 6 VM channels, so you can appear ‘broken’ to the 7th inbound call at peak times.

Also, but supposedly not a point for concern was that Avaya went into (from memory) chapter 11 administration. Still operating but looking for a buyer, but supposedly too big to be allowed to die?

[mdrabble]

Installed 3CX to look at and seems very easy to setup (not got a SIP trunk - so can only test internally)

 

Softphone is good - only used this for testing at the moment, I have ordered 2 Yealink T19P phones so I can test settings actual phones etc....

 

Next question is SIP Trunk/Lines......

 

We currently have 4 incoming and 4 outgoing lines - I am assuming 1 SIP Trunk with 4/8 lines is reasonable?

 

How many SIP Trunks/Lines do other people have?

[localzuk]

Installed 3CX to look at and seems very easy to setup (not got a SIP trunk - so can only test internally)

Softphone is good - only used this for testing at the moment, I have ordered 2 Yealink T19P phones so I can test settings actual phones etc....

Next question is SIP Trunk/Lines......

We currently have 4 incoming and 4 outgoing lines - I am assuming 1 SIP Trunk with 4/8 lines is reasonable?

How many SIP Trunks/Lines do other people have?

It varies how its done by each provider. I use Voip Unlimited, and have a single SIP trunk for each school, but can have an unlimited number of incoming and outgoing calls on it. Some providers charge you per channel on that trunk - so you specify how many you want.

[mdrabble]

Just had a question asked - can you call 1 internal number and have it ring 2 phones?

 

and also....... for a shared office, can you have 2 phones with 1 ext number?

Edited November 2, 2017 by mdrabble

[Blue_Cookeh]

Just had a question asked - can you call 1 internal number and have it ring 2 phones?

 

and also....... for a shared office, can you have 2 phones with 1 ext number?

 

The term you're looking for is 'hunt group' and just about any phone system you choose should be able to do this for both internal and external calls I know with our Avaya system I can set a hunt group to ring all extensions before voicemail, go directly to voicemail, ring extension A, then B, then C and so on. This stuff is hugely flexible nowadays.

[Edu-IT]

Just had a question asked - can you call 1 internal number and have it ring 2 phones?

 

and also....... for a shared office, can you have 2 phones with 1 ext number?

When you say 1 external number, what are you trying to achieve?

[dgsmith]

Just had a question asked - can you call 1 internal number and have it ring 2 phones?

 

and also....... for a shared office, can you have 2 phones with 1 ext number?

 

Working on the assumption you're asking in relation to 3cx config (as you note you are trying that), the hunt group as mentioned above covers both instances. For our reception, we have a single extension number assigned as a queue number in 3cx, which rings both reception phones when dialled, and similarly this is queue that rings when the main school number is dialled (i.e. the main school number, post auto attendant, calls the queue which in turn rings the member phones). It's very straightforward.

 

When I first discovered 3cx, I was somewhat apprehensive about proposing it as a production system as I didn't feel too confident, given its low price and "windows" application approach and wasn't sure that it would offer what we needed. I was so wrong.. it offers too much, scales theoretically to any number of extensions for the cost of a SIP handset (yealink here too), and without additional licence costs.

 

Regarding SIP trunks.. some will offer you free SIP trials. We took a trial with 3cx approved spitfire (as they then offered, and still do, the most competitive per-call rates), and we ended up simply taking out a contract with them, as we had the luxury of trying their SIP trunks for free and getting the config right before any committment (just paying for the calls in that time).

[TechMonkey]

Just had a question asked - can you call 1 internal number and have it ring 2 phones?

 

and also....... for a shared office, can you have 2 phones with 1 ext number?

Yes to both. As someone else said you are looking at groups. So in our office there are 2 phones that both ring if someone dials our external DDI or our internal number.

 

You can do just about any combo. So for our medical team they call an extension and it rings the main nurse desk phone and mobile, then after x seconds it goes to the second desk phone and mobile and after x seconds it goes to Reception.

 

As said before any phone system should have these features but I would say 3CX manages to do it in a simple way and with no extra licensing. I was apprehensive as the price was so much cheaper but I spoke some colleges and schools around us that use it and they said, it does what it says. The other systems all seemed to need a requote if we asked for a feature or if we could do something.

 

In the end we over specced the number of concurrent lines we can use, got higher spec phones and some accessories for about half the price of the other systems. Part of the reason we did that was that the Finance team said the system was too cheap.

 

In the end my view was that we are a school, not a call centre, not a sales department so to spend 15-20k on a phone system wouldn't get us any return. I also now have confidence that even if we suddenly had to open a call centre for the school we could!