Google Voice - Has anyone gone down this path?

[TwistedHelixis]

I have a primary school that currently has no hard line phone system due to a damaged cable last week, although they are getting by with a mobile phone. The current supplier wants to install a complete new system, which I think will include digging up a lot of the ground.

 

Very quickly looking at alternatives and remembered Google Voice. As we are already using Google in the school this could be an option, but I know nothing about phone systems.

 

They just have a main line number and then about 10 internal phones around the school.

 

Have any other schools used Google Voice?

[Wubbalubbadub]

I wouldn't bother with google voice.

 

We use: DoveComms - Voice & Data Made Simple

 

Very cheap and effective.

[mavhc]

VoIP is insanely cheap if you don't pay someone to host it for you and start paying per user.

 

Gamma is something like £7.50 per simultaneous call, per month, with 15000 free minutes, so you'd pay about £30/month, run 3cx or Freepbx as a VM internally, done.

 

If the internet goes down, phone them, forward all calls to a mobile for a while.

[TwistedHelixis]

I wouldn't bother with google voice.

Any particular reason?

[Wubbalubbadub]

Any particular reason?

 

Pricing for these schemes are per user. Rather than per handset. So you have to factor in everyone who would use a phone. By the time you have done this, you are usually talking a fair chunk every month, compared to per handset costs.

 

I know Dovecomms do a handset at £10 per month - including all calls. That goes down with more handsets usually.

 

It is the same with Teams Voice.

 

Matt

[mavhc]

Yeah, the plans are designed for offices full of people on the phone all day.

 

The whole point of a PBX was to not pay per handset/user, it would be like paying for an internet connection for every computer in the school, PBX is just NAT for phones.

[TwistedHelixis]

ricing for these schemes are per user. Rather than per handset.

Would this work? If they only had proper handsets (no phone apps) and those were just using 'special user accounts', like handset 1, handset 2 etc, we would only need 12 accounts for those phones.

[TwistedHelixis]

We use: DoveComms - Voice & Data Made SimpleVery cheap and effective.

 

I have forwarded this on to the school.

[TwistedHelixis]

Out of interest, are there any schools using Google Voice?

[paulkerton]

Now they've combined calls with the license, we're looking at it. I know @rogerdnixon has gone down this route.

[rogerdnixon]

We have deployed it across lots of the schools in our Trust and it works really well. We use quite a lot of the Polycom handsets. Calls are now free - so its pretty cheap - pay around £7ish per month per licence. My blog post about it from when we started using it: https://wpsit.blogspot.com/2020/05/google-voice-its-rather-cool.html - gained a lot of features since then.

 

Ease of management centrally in the admin console is key for us with many sites.

[TwistedHelixis]

@rogerdnixon Thanks, that is really helpful. There seems to be 3 versions of Google Voice, Starter, Standard & premier, which would you recommend?

[rogerdnixon]

Standard is what we use. You get the licenses from you regular Google partner - in our case C-Learning. You only pay anything once you start using the licenses and can add and remove at anytime - just pay for what you use. No contacts to be tied into which is nice.

[TwistedHelixis]

Calls are now free - so its pretty cheap - pay around £7ish per month per licence.

Are you getting that cheap price as you went through a reseller? The standard price per license on the Google website seems to be £15 on the standard

[rogerdnixon]

The website price is for businesses - its not the Edu price. Buy from your Google Partner and they should be able to give you the Edu pricing.

[TwistedHelixis]

The website price is for businesses - its not the Edu price. Buy from your Google Partner and they should be able to give you the Edu pricing.

And that one bit of information will make all the difference. Thanks :-)

[TronXP]

I have just started a trial and we have been given Poly B20 and Poly B30 phones to try out. Unless I am missing something (please someone tell me I am!) they basically appear to be unfit for purpose unless using them as a simple "home phone". They don't connect to your contact list, you can store a few speed dial numbers but that is it. If I want to ring a member of staff instead of like our old PBX system (typing in 4 numbers) I need to dial a full-blown telephone number. The same goes for transferring calls, and even if I have someone stored in the speed dial the transfer screen on the phone means I can't select the speed dial pages. It's fine when using it based of a PC but the phones seem very poor. Please someone tell me if I am doing this wrong!

[rogerdnixon]

We use them at a many schools. We pre-programme speed dials into the handsets - so a bit like old school extensions. You can either login to the web interface of the devices (as Google for the password) or you can set up a little webserver and point the devices at it and it pulls a list you can centrally manage. Apparently options are coming to programme speeddials into the handsets via the management console. We also pre-configure some of the user options.

 

So when transferring a call - press transfer, press speeddials and dial - other person picks up and you transfer if they want you to. Pretty simple and works well.

 

We use a mixture of VVX150/VVX250/Edge B10/B20s - kind of whatever we can buy B20's atm. All work much the same.

[Jackh1213_]

Hi Roger,

 

How have you managed to get the speed dials. I have tried this using the Web interface on the vvx150 can can't seam to get the names up.

 

Thanks

 

Jack

[rogerdnixon]

You need to go to user settings > speeddials > untick the boxes and then you can edit them.

Save when done and reboot.

[gszech]

When you sign up to Google Voice, can you easily transfer your current school phone number to the service ?

[rogerdnixon]

Yep - you just do number porting via the Google admin console. Takes about a month to port numbers. Just make sure you are rock solid on all of the details on the port request and they are super picky!

[DGardiner]

spin yourself a 3cx trial up and bring your own sip trunk

 

then you can use mobiles with the app, web based phone, or buy handsets to suit - we use yealink and the setup is easy, add a dhcp option and plugin

 

we have a hosted system with a provider which is £230 a month with 24 simultaneous calls - this is enough capacity for us to run 12 schools without touching the limit with 250 handsets if you size it right you will be paying peanuts

[Jackh1213_]

Thanks Roger, will check that out. Another thing. How have people managed to get round the call groups with handsets?

 

We have our main school number which everyone can use and call out from, as they are part of the ring group. How you ensure that the caller ID on the handsets display the main school number?

 

Thanks

 

Jack

[rogerdnixon]

There isa feature about to be released to allow you to specify that users in a given OU get the caller id of the autoattendant number when they make a call. Q2 release - so anytime now - the option is already there - the policy is not yet.