Phone Systems

[mavhc]

You don't need a vlan, but it sometimes useful, if you already have multiple vlans set up it's easy enough to add more.

 

What are you using to configure the Grandstreams?

[SchoolsBroadband]

Hi @Michael,

 

we only do hosted VoIP systems and have for the past 12 years! I believe there's a lot of benefits from doing it in the cloud rather than onsite. In fact i'm a big believe in nearly all services going to the clouds in different guises over time. Phones are just another application that can sit elsewhere.

 

We've thousands of our My School Phones handsets out there and it's certainly a lot cheaper than the other prices quoted here so feel free to send me a PM if you'd like a quote

 

If you need any advice feel free to get in touch too.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[mavhc]

Problem is phones cost £40 and lines cost £5/month including calls. Only need a few lines as not every phone will be on an external call at all times.

 

So you're looking at £50/month or so with an internal system.

[SchoolsBroadband]

We don't do it that way. We do pay for the licence and then pay for the number of call bundles / concurrent calls you want to make. Some of our licences can go under £2pm depending on how many you buy.

 

We found that for secondary schools in particularly bundling calls in with every handset just isn't economically viable for a school that often has phones sitting there doing very little so way pay for call bundles for them?

 

Dave

[Edu-IT]

We don't do it that way. We do pay for the licence and then pay for the number of call bundles / concurrent calls you want to make. Some of our licences can go under £2pm depending on how many you buy.

 

We found that for secondary schools in particularly bundling calls in with every handset just isn't economically viable for a school that often has phones sitting there doing very little so way pay for call bundles for them?

 

Dave

Can I just clarify, we pay for handset licenses as you have said but then channels (which I assume is number of concurrent calls) and a number of unlimited call bundles. The channel and call bundle items priced separately.

 

I’ve interpreted it from your post that if you wanted 5 channels (concurrent calls) then you would purchase 5 unlimited call bundles. Is this correct?

 

If so, our number of call bundles greatly outnumbers the number of channels we have.

 

Just wondering how it works as we may look to implement the solution elsewhere.

 

@SchoolsBroadband

Edited July 15, 2019 by Edu-IT

[SchoolsBroadband]

Yes that's correct. We have experimented with other variations I the past though.

 

If you send me a PM I'll check what you've got and make sure it's being billed correctly.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[mavhc]

Heh, licences. Considering phones last 10 years at £2/month that's £240/phone, vs £40 if you buy it.

[Simcfc73]

Mine were £20

[Edu-IT]

Heh, licences. Considering phones last 10 years at £2/month that's £240/phone, vs £40 if you buy it.

But you're paying for the convenience of having the cloud service. Obviously, if you run a system internally, it's always going to be cheaper but not everyone has the skills/time/equipment to run such system and in this case a service with a license cost will be appealing to them.

[mavhc]

Is it worth £200/phone though? Just run a VM, software is free, so only cost is time. £10/hour, it's not going to take 20 hours per phone.

[localzuk]

Is it worth £200/phone though? Just run a VM, software is free, so only cost is time. £10/hour, it's not going to take 20 hours per phone.

Running a VM costs money too - either via hardware, or cloud hosting cost. If you've got the time to do that sort of thing, good for you, not all schools do. I know our first schools didn't - which is why they bought into solutions from companies (until they joined us and we do it in our team, as we have the time).

 

Your argument is predicated on everyone's needs being the same as yours. They aren't.

[mavhc]

Everyone who's already got a server than can run VMs, so everyone with a server that's not 15 years old. Doesn't cost any more to run another VM really.

[localzuk]

Everyone who's already got a server than can run VMs, so everyone with a server that's not 15 years old. Doesn't cost any more to run another VM really.

That is a really poor way of looking at IT costs, and it will bite you in the butt at some point. Every system you run has a cost to run. Hardware isn't free. Electricity isn't free. Replacement hardware isn't free. Time to maintain that hardware isn't free. Time to maintain that VM isn't free.

[mavhc]

Assuming 50 phones, it's cheaper than 200*50, £10000

 

1GB ram £5, 1W of power * 10 years = 87kWh, so £20 inc cooling. So now just need £9775 worth of time, that's a lot of hours.

[localzuk]

You think you'd not replace a server in 10 years? Really? I don't know of *any* school that waits 10 years to replace their server - especially if its running mission critical services, like being able to call the emergency services...

 

Throw in the UPS to keep the system powered in a power cut. Throw in inevitable issues with updates when they happen (FreePBX and Asterisk aren't always the easiest to update, in my experience of having run it for 10 years). Throw in having zero support when something goes wrong etc...

 

Sure, you're paying more for a managed solution where you pay by extension, but you're paying for support and peace of mind on top.

 

Also, you assume that everyone is running VMs already - this site is proof they aren't. Plenty of questions about whether they should virtualise. Plenty of schools running off a handful of physical servers or more. Plenty of primary schools running from a single server for everything.

 

Whilst the idea of paying for phones by extension may not be ideal for you, for some schools it is. For us? Nah, we've got the expertise to do it all in house. Our local first schools with 30 kids total each? Not so much.

[mavhc]

But 1GB ram, and 1GB storage for your new server will be even cheaper, it's a rounding error.

 

So, for schools with a VM server, and >5 phones, it's probably worth it, basically cost of hosted vs local is £1000/5 phones/10 years.

 

Of course if you're not saving money switching to VoIP, why bother in the first place? Already have a PoTS PBX. If you're small you're unlikely to be paying for fast internet.

 

I've not noticed anyone asking about whether to virtualise for a year or so now.

[localzuk]

If you are buying a new server - and not moving everything into "the cloud"... And if you don't want the peace of mind of having support on the end of a phone etc...

[mavhc]

If you're moving to The Cloud you can just rend a vm, apparently it's way cheaper or so The Cloud people tell me

[DavR]

We recently bought a new onsite system. We did look at the options of going hosted VOIP, but at a per month per handset charge, it was just extortionate.

 

Instead we spent a couple of hundred on new onsite boxes, and reused existing handsets in most instances. The biggest outlay was engineer time from our phone guys.

 

Hopefully going from ISDN to SIP over the holidays, if people pull their fingers out....

[Jobos]

Just thought I would share our costs for Orbtalk hosted VoIP. We have 13 extensions and costs including calls for the last 12 months comes in at a little under £1500 + VAT. It's on my to do list to look at moving hosting and maybe even have a play with on premises 3CX but being part time that could be an issue if something goes wrong when I'm not working.

[Edu-IT]

Just thought I would share our costs for Orbtalk hosted VoIP. We have 13 extensions and costs including calls for the last 12 months comes in at a little under £1500 + VAT. It's on my to do list to look at moving hosting and maybe even have a play with on premises 3CX but being part time that could be an issue if something goes wrong when I'm not working.

How many simultaneous calls?

[Jobos]

13 but we could easily cut that in half as some extensions are rarely used.

[mavhc]

So 115/month, could probably cut that to 20 self hosted

[Edu-IT]

So 115/month, could probably cut that to 20 self hosted

Maybe so. But they are part time and should something go wrong when there’s no support on site, it could be very disruptive. So their establishment has decided to outsource that responsibility and consider it an acceptable price.

 

We’ve been through this already I’m sure.

[mavhc]

Now they can afford to pay them £95/month more.

 

Phones do tend to just work forever, it's the setup that takes time.

 

If they've outsourced it they still have no support on site.