3CX - Do we need SBC controllers if...

[timbo343]

Our sites are migrating to 3CX and they are all using at least 1 model of the Fanvil V61G, V62G, V63, X210 phones, with a couple of sites having the W611W wifi phone.

 

The phones mentioned with the exception of the W611W are all capable of being Directly Connected to 3CX cloud without having to be configured against a SBC or a router phone.

 

Where possible, should we be using Direct Connection to 3CX rather than pushing the phones through a SBC or a dedicated router phone?

[speakercon]

It's a question I've thought of before, but always used a SBC in the end. I can’t see any reason not too, I have quite a few sites with a router phone and then a handful of other phones connected to that. Apart from having to buy more expensive router phones, but if you already have them…

 

I think the SBC is a great improvement from having to open ports and hope the sip helpers don’t break anything, but also does create a single point of failure (unless you setup a failover) and extra hardware dependency.

 

I think it would be great if every model of supported phone could connect directly to the server as a ‘router phone’, maybe that will come in the future.

 

One benefit of the SBC is internal voice traffic stays on the lan.

[timbo343]

21 minutes ago, speakercon said:

It's a question I've thought of before, but always used a SBC in the end. I can’t see any reason not too, I have quite a few sites with a router phone and then a handful of other phones connected to that. Apart from having to buy more expensive router phones, but if you already have them…

 

I think the SBC is a great improvement from having to open ports and hope the sip helpers don’t break anything, but also does create a single point of failure (unless you setup a failover) and extra hardware dependency.

 

I think it would be great if every model of supported phone could connect directly to the server as a ‘router phone’, maybe that will come in the future.

 

One benefit of the SBC is internal voice traffic stays on the lan.

 

Ah, I never thought of the SBC keeping the internal voice traffic within the LAN 👍

 

I suppose for our secondaries it is worth having the SBCs as they have around 100 phones each but at our primaries, we have between 3 and 20 handsets.

[speakercon]

For the primary's I would put a router phone as the reception phone, and then connect the other handful of phones to that. Only downside really is if they unplug it for some reason not knowing it will cause all the other phones to stop working, but pretty rare and gets plugged back in sharpish.

 

For secondaries two SBC's in a HA cluster. I have dabbled with the idea of using maybe ten router phones in admin areas and then connecting 10 or so normal phones to each of them but never done it as it seemed abit messy.

 

I do like the idea of doing away with the SBC's and each phone just going to back to the server, but currently as only the higher end phones support being a router phone it would be expensive.

 

I guess if you have a solid WAN connection it wouldn't be a problem for internal traffic.

[TechMonkey]

We have 4 sites.  A virtual SBC on the main one and a router phone at the other three, as none of the breach the 10 device limit, though we will have to keep an eye.  We have also added a couple of router phones at other properties, including the new Yealink Wi-Fi cordless phone.

[DGardiner]

to be honest, they use no resources i just run it on a server on site or chuck the linux vm on one of the hosts. Id rather have it there than on one of the handsets with a potato proccessor

[timbo343]

18 hours ago, speakercon said:

For the primary's I would put a router phone as the reception phone, and then connect the other handful of phones to that. Only downside really is if they unplug it for some reason not knowing it will cause all the other phones to stop working, but pretty rare and gets plugged back in sharpish.

 

For secondaries two SBC's in a HA cluster. I have dabbled with the idea of using maybe ten router phones in admin areas and then connecting 10 or so normal phones to each of them but never done it as it seemed abit messy.

 

I do like the idea of doing away with the SBC's and each phone just going to back to the server, but currently as only the higher end phones support being a router phone it would be expensive.

 

I guess if you have a solid WAN connection it wouldn't be a problem for internal traffic.

 

That's exactly what we are doing but trailing the smaller schools with the phones connecting directly to the cloud in case the reception phone is unplugged.