Internal IP Phone Systems

[CHR1S]

I'm looking at costing up an internal IP phone system, does anyone have any experience in this area who's brains I can pick please?

 

It is for inter class communication and does not require external dialling.

 

Also, what other ways can the system be set up i.e. dect style phones or something

[Willott]

Ours is internal and external - Centos, Asterisk 1.6, Freepbx and a bunch of SIP phones (including some Wifi) and soft phones.

 

Centos, asterisk and freepbx can be found together in things like trixbox, and pbx-in-a-flash has something similar (and asterisknow).

 

Setup asterisk, use freepbx to setup extension for each phone, setup phone to connect to pbx with extension details, start calling.

 

Edit: oh, you can get Dect SIP phones (dect base station does IP bit, then phone to base station is dect)

 

Cheers

 

Will

[localzuk]

We've got a similar setup to Wilmott. Ubuntu, Asterisk 1.2, Freepbx and a bunch of Grandstream GXP2000 handsets.

 

You can do this sort of thing very cheaply to be honest, as Asterisk is not exactly that power hungry for small numbers of handsets.

 

My only advice would be - if you scrimp on the handsets, you'll get issues. Our GXP2000's are fine but have some annoying issues. I'd love to replace them with something tougher, like Snom or Polycom.

 

A good couple of sites for info on this would be Asterisk Hardware, Phone Systems, IP Phones & VoIP Equipment - VoIPon Solutions and voip-info.org - voip-info.org

 

When I get a moment, I intend to update our system to a later version of Asterisk, quite possibly shifting to Trixbox too.

 

You can of course get pre-built systems such as this: Rhino Ceros Desktop, 160GB Hard Drive (CEROSDT-160GB) if you don't fancy too much messing around too.

[Willott]

Localzuk reminded me about suppliers... we used voipon for our phones - got Doro phones, which appear to be rebadged snom's - as far as configuration goes they have pretty much the same options as the Snoms. Voipon may have had an offer on them, but they were about half the price that their website showed - certainly worth asking them for a quote (I think I'd asked for a general SIP phone)

 

Cheers

 

Will

[CHR1S]

To be honest, to implement and manage this by my self and provide the support and training will be a huge task. Ideally I would have a pre-built/configured system with some kind of support package/training.

 

Now real world means that the cost will be too much, so, I see a compromise coming lol.

[Willott]

Suggest you check out Fonality trixbox CE, an Asterisk-based PBX Phone System (formerly Asterisk@Home) | trixbox, AsteriskNOW | Asterisk or PBX in a Flash

 

Simple installs and configs. If you have a spare old PC kicking around (possibly P4) then it should run for what you need (or virtualise it - I think there are some prebuilt virtual machines for some of them).

[CHR1S]

On the phone side, do you install dedicated ports for each phone or can you piggyback them PC > Phone > Port ??

[Willott]

Depends on the phone - quite a few of the "business" phones have inbuilt switch (which can quite often do VLANing as well).

[CHR1S]

So this could be implemented site wide with very little infrastructure change? Im starting to like the idea more and more

[localzuk]

So this could be implemented site wide with very little infrastructure change? Im starting to like the idea more and more

 

Yes, it should involve minimal change. However, you want to ensure you have QoS for the phones enabled. Also, to make sure of high quality here, we have VLANs set up, so phones have a dedicated segment of network.

[Willott]

Other thing (which I forgot) was power - either socket near phone or PoE, not something which may not exist from normal phones

[Sirbendy]

Can't advise much here, as we're Cisco VoIP throughout, with callmanager, ARC console etc.

[Willott]

Can't advise much here, as we're Cisco VoIP throughout, with callmanager, ARC console etc.

 

Blooming heck... do you have gold plated urinals as well!

[localzuk]

Other thing (which I forgot) was power - either socket near phone or PoE, not something which may not exist from normal phones

 

Indeed. We put in a PoE switch for our office/admin area, as there was a high density of VOIP devices, but everywhere else we use normal plugs.

[Ric_]

Microsoft Lync here... just trying to sort out the ISDN gateway but that won't bother you. Lync licensing is cheap on Schools Agreement and I'm using a mix of Polycom CX300 (USB) and Snom 300 (IP with inbuilt switch) handsets. I compared the costs to Asterisk and it was pretty similar and I prefered the Lync featureset.

 

I found Voipon to be the most expensive when it came to quotes - I was surprised. Angel Technologies were cheapest and got me the CX300 handsets for the price of CX200 ones! Insight were also very competitive.

[localzuk]

I found Voipon to be the most expensive when it came to quotes - I was surprised. Angel Technologies were cheapest and got me the CX300 handsets for the price of CX200 ones! Insight were also very competitive.

 

Agreed, their pricing isn't the best, but their knowledge is pretty good.

[IanT]

We had our new VoIP system but in end of last year, bulk of the kit was configured off-site by the contractor, were running a Cisco VoIP System.

 

All phones are PoE running on HP kit.

[CHR1S]

Do these systems support voice mail and sms type messaging?

[IanT]

Ours does yes - if u want to know who we used, PM me.

[CHR1S]

I probably will, just getting ideas before I present to SMT

[Soulfish]

Looking at implementing a MS Lync based system here

[Domino]

OCS here - moving to lync this year.

 

I'd say never underestimate the growth in a project like this - you may not need external dialling yet - but have a plan for adding it, cause eventually you'll be asked ;-)

[steveg]

We use a phone system here made by epygi, it was very cheap for what it does and has been very reliable. Took about half a day to get my head round setting it up, but it works very well now. We use it for external calls but could be used for just internal only. On the client side we use SNOM 300 handsets, they are pretty cheap, are POE and have an extra network socket on the back for a pc to plug into so you dont need extra sockets.

 

Now its setup its just a case of plug the phone in, it boots and downloads its config from the system and sets itself up. We also have 3 voip wifi phones which work brilliantly, even roaming between access points.

 

Steve

[simpsonj]

Apologies for dragging up an old thread, but I wondered if someone could answer a quick question to do with IP Phones and PoE. I've been informed that in some cases an 8 port PoE switch may not be able to power 8 phones because a phone takes up more power than, say, a WAP. If this is true, what should I be looking for to find out whether a HP Pro Curve E2520-24 PoE switch can handle 24 phones being attached? The other switches will most likely have half the number of phones compared to PoE ports, but the main office area has a lot of phones, and only a 2U gap in its cabinet...

[tollfreenumbers]

I know the basics of the technology but that's about all. We're going to be

moving office soon and we're considering dumping our Nortel Meridian PBX

system and thinking about IP telephony.

 

Any links to reference material on setting up a medium sized (50 people)

VoIP system for internal phone system? Of course, it'll need to talk to the

existing external telephone network :-)