Implementing a voip phone system. Where to start?

[Qas]

Hi all,

 

Project coming up is to ditch our analogue phone system to a voip one.

 

What have you all done first in this scenario?

 

I have managed voip systems before so I am familiar with configuring them, but I have never moved from an analogue system before.

 

Any advice?

 

Thanks

[caffrey]

Do you want on prem or off prem ?

 

We've just went with gamma for an off prem system (good for disaster management) - initially I was going to do it in house but the board didn't want me taking more responsibility on, ironically I will be the main admin for the Gamma system... Gamma will take care of all the porting of numbers etc.

I initially reached out to gamma just for sip trunks for a 3cx system

[Edu-IT]

We went with Schools Broadband for an off prem solution, although looked at Gamma too, and SB managed all of the porting of numbers and setup of extensions etc.

 

It practically runs itself now.

[Tefters]

You could go S4B on-prem with Office 365 hosted voicemail (free) and some sip trunks.

[p858snake]

What have you all done first in this scenario?

 

Scope out what you want first from the new system before you look at different systems and/or providers and work out some must haves and some "oh, that would be cool if it supported that" features.

 

Do you want onsite equipment or hosted off site?

Do you want to join multiple sites into one system?

Do you want a dedicated extension in every room or do you only certain rooms need extensions?

Do you want a Direct in Dial on every line?

Do you want users to easily hotdesk/hoteling their extensions?

Do you want voicemail on every extension?

Do you want mobile twinning?

Do you want integration with other systems? (example: PA system/voicemail to email)

Do you have analogue/other devices you still need to support? (Faxes, Lift Phones, Security Systems, Door/Gate phones)

Do you want these devices to still run though your PABX?

 

If you scope out first it does help reduce some of that "omg, that would be cool" when you look at different systems

Edited May 5, 2018 by p858snake

[Chris_Cook]

You'll want a good audit of your current system. At least the number of phones and other devices attached to it. Make sure Lifts, alarms, faxes etc are all accounted for.

 

You also want to look at your cabling and switches. You'll probably want enough POE ports for each phone. Ideally you'll want a dedicated cable/datapoint for each phone as well, or at least make sure you have a handset with gigabit ports on it if you daisy chain them with a PC.

 

As part of your audit, you'll want to look at issues with the current handset deployment, whether you want additional ones, fewer ones, or more or less features on each handset.

 

Organisational procedures need looking at too. Work out what happens when people call in from outside. What does you answer phone/ IVR do currently. Make sure this is documented, discussed and planned with the relevant staff. Saves some arguments later, even if you are going to make changes.

 

Ideally you should have a separate VLAN for your phones, so that will need planning and implementing. You should also make sure your happy with your current network in terms of configuring it and how reliable it is.

 

Your switch-over day(s) need some consideration. Make sure your office/reception staff know how to do transfers etc. Your number porting needs booking in advance. I'd recommend allowing yourself plenty of time to make sure everything is setup as you want before you switch over.

[Meldrew]

3cx offer a free voip based PBX with some limitations (we purchased a licence), so you can try this, just need to purchase some handsets and a SIP trunk or two to have a low cost trial of how it'll work. This is what we did 8 years ago when we did the same (bar SIP trunk).

[Qas]

You'll want a good audit of your current system. At least the number of phones and other devices attached to it. Make sure Lifts, alarms, faxes etc are all accounted for.

 

You also want to look at your cabling and switches. You'll probably want enough POE ports for each phone. Ideally you'll want a dedicated cable/datapoint for each phone as well, or at least make sure you have a handset with gigabit ports on it if you daisy chain them with a PC.

 

As part of your audit, you'll want to look at issues with the current handset deployment, whether you want additional ones, fewer ones, or more or less features on each handset.

 

Organisational procedures need looking at too. Work out what happens when people call in from outside. What does you answer phone/ IVR do currently. Make sure this is documented, discussed and planned with the relevant staff. Saves some arguments later, even if you are going to make changes.

 

Ideally you should have a separate VLAN for your phones, so that will need planning and implementing. You should also make sure your happy with your current network in terms of configuring it and how reliable it is.

 

Your switch-over day(s) need some consideration. Make sure your office/reception staff know how to do transfers etc. Your number porting needs booking in advance. I'd recommend allowing yourself plenty of time to make sure everything is setup as you want before you switch over.

Hi Chris,

 

Thank you so much that summary. If you Daisy Chain phones, can the phone still be part of a different VLAN then the PC that is connected to it? I have read that this is possible, but not sure if this is only configurable on Cisco phones / switches.

 

Thanks

[Qas]

We went with Schools Broadband for an off prem solution, although looked at Gamma too, and SB managed all of the porting of numbers and setup of extensions etc.

 

It practically runs itself now.

 

Sounds interesting. What system do Schools Broadband use? I am assuming you gave them a list of numbers that need porting? If so, how long did the switching over take?

 

Thanks

[Qas]

Thanks Caffrey.

 

I'm thinking about doing it in house. If I go with an off prem system, do I not need SIP trunks?

[nathan]

In our trust i run FreePBX hosted in a datacentre. Only have 1 school and an office on their at the moment but it works great. We have SIP trunks from Gamma and we manage it as part of our ICT offer to schools.

[Qas]

Scope out what you want first from the new system before you look at different systems and/or providers and work out some must haves and some "oh, that would be cool if it supported that" features.

 

Do you want onsite equipment or hosted off site?

Do you want to join multiple sites into one system?

Do you want a dedicated extension in every room or do you only certain rooms need extensions?

Do you want a Direct in Dial on every line?

Do you want users to easily hotdesk/hoteling their extensions?

Do you want voicemail on every extension?

Do you want mobile twinning?

Do you want integration with other systems? (example: PA system/voicemail to email)

Do you have analogue/other devices you still need to support? (Faxes, Lift Phones, Security Systems, Door/Gate phones)

Do you want these devices to still run though your PABX?

 

If you scope out first it does help reduce some of that "omg, that would be cool" when you look at different systems

Thanks for the reply.

 

I hadn't thought about mobile twinning, but that is definitely a "that would be cool" point and I can see that being quite popular.

 

How / why would you link a PA system to the phone system? I cannot think why you would do this so I am curious.

 

Much appreciated.

[caffrey]

Thanks Caffrey.

 

I'm thinking about doing it in house. If I go with an off prem system, do I not need SIP trunks?

 

No that's taken care of by the provider

[Davit2005]

Hi Chris,

 

Thank you so much that summary. If you Daisy Chain phones, can the phone still be part of a different VLAN then the PC that is connected to it? I have read that this is possible, but not sure if this is only configurable on Cisco phones / switches.

 

Thanks

 

Loads of other phones/switches can do this too not just Cisco. You want to check if the switches you have are managed/smart, support lldp-med and voice vlans. I've got some Cisco SPA504's at home and have used these with HP, 3Com and Unifi switches without issue.

 

Separate Voice from your data vlans, some phone systems may also need some specific dhcp settings.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Davit2005

[Qas]

Thanks, that has cleared that up.

 

No that's taken care of by the provider

[Qas]

Great. Our HP switches support LLDP. Will I be able to configure the port so that the phones use a VLAN that I create or will the phones use an automatically created VLAN?

 

Loads of other phones/switches can do this too not just Cisco. You want to check if the switches you have are managed/smart, support lldp-med and voice vlans. I've got some Cisco SPA504's at home and have used these with HP, 3Com and Unifi switches without issue.

 

Separate Voice from your data vlans, some phone systems may also need some specific dhcp settings.

[Chris_Cook]

We use Yealink phones and 3cx, with a mix of HP and Unifi Switches.

 

There are a couple of ways to do it, and LLDP-MED should work well, especially if all your switches are from one vendor.

 

On our system we do it differently - the ports are untagged in the office admin VLAN, and have the voip vlan tagged. Once the phone boots and contacts the DHCP server, we have a dhcp policy that applies option 132 (vlan id), and 66 (boot server host name). It then uses the voip vlan for the phone, and keeps the PC port on the office admin vlan.

 

We have lots of small switches dotted all over our site, so the DHCP option was a bit more straight forward for us. With fewer and more standardised switches, we might have looked at the LLDP way.

 

I believe for both options, you will need to create a vlan and tag it between all your switches. You will also want it routed appropriately. For LLDP-MED, on your switches you will then need to tell it which is your voice vlan. The exact details are probably dependent on your switch and phone vendor.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Chris_Cook

[TechMonkey]

Off-prem users, can I ask for rough prices? When we looked a couple of years ago costs seemed reasonable until you scaled it up. So I think one quote was £7 per handset per month, we have 51 handsets, so for a year it works out to nearly £5k so only 3 years before we break over the cost of an onsite system, including hardware. Once we have bought the hardware the cloud cost was 10x the annual license fee.

[DGardiner]

Off-prem users, can I ask for rough prices? When we looked a couple of years ago costs seemed reasonable until you scaled it up. So I think one quote was £7 per handset per month, we have 51 handsets, so for a year it works out to nearly £5k so only 3 years before we break over the cost of an onsite system, including hardware. Once we have bought the hardware the cloud cost was 10x the annual license fee.

 

we went down the route of buying all our own hardware upfront. our CFO kicked a lot of the leasing proposals back as they were all lease to own as their selling point and not allowed for whatever reason.

 

this was installed a month or 2 ago, currently runs 93 phones in 4 schools with immediate plans to expand further when the yearly renewals come up in the trust schools. had i known 3cx as i now do a couple of weeks ago i wouldnt even have picked up the end user support on the 23 phones as its stupidly easy to manage and could have cut the service costs down by just under a 3rd - luckily the company we went with is absolutely flexible and were only on annual commitments and the support is optional.

 

unlike most of the other providers we had putting in for this, they dont charge per extension so i can add as much as i want to it (even sourced myself.. on my head obviously), as long as i can keep within the simultaneous call limits and even then the price jump is minuscule when it gets split 'N' ways

 

[TechMonkey]

That seems a lot more reasonable. So this is a company hosting a 3CX installation for you, supporting it and the handsets, and includes a DR backup. May I ask who that is? Seems very good.

[Davit2005]

Great. Our HP switches support LLDP. Will I be able to configure the port so that the phones use a VLAN that I create or will the phones use an automatically created VLAN?

 

It is lldp-med you really want for phones, I've some old HP switches at home I think they are 2810's that support lldp but not lldp-med.

[DGardiner]

That seems a lot more reasonable. So this is a company hosting a 3CX installation for you, supporting it and the handsets, and includes a DR backup. May I ask who that is? Seems very good.

 

only 23 of the handsets, who we deemed mission critical have opted in for support, but yes they host and look after it - i have full admin access and can do what i like with the system though minus mess with the sip trunks and a few other bits.

 

i'll pm you

[Davit2005]

only 23 of the handsets, who we deemed mission critical have opted in for support, but yes they host and look after it - i have full admin access and can do what i like with the system though minus mess with the sip trunks and a few other bits.

 

i'll pm you

 

I'd be interested too.

 

I note they have quoted 2 x NUC. Must be a reason they are not running on Virtual.

[DGardiner]

I'd be interested too.

 

I note they have quoted 2 x NUC. Must be a reason they are not running on Virtual.

 

in all honesty i ended up shelving the nuc's and just putting the Session border controller program onto one of the windows servers on site as it uses no resources at all

 

they did offer to refund the nucs but i said id keep them for one of the next schools we onboard since they're recommended on sites with 10+ handsets

[Edu-IT]

Sounds interesting. What system do Schools Broadband use? I am assuming you gave them a list of numbers that need porting? If so, how long did the switching over take?

 

Thanks

It's the Altos platform. (http://www.myphones.com/)

 

Porting didn't take long at all. From memory we agreed a switch over time and at that moment any calls to the main number went through to the new phone system. It was painless.