glennda Posted April 27, 2011 Posted April 27, 2011 Has anybody got any recommendations as to voip Telephone systems? we are going to need to keep multiple old lines (internal) which are connected to our telephone system which is 20+ years old! We've currently looked at Splicecom Systems and they looked pretty good just need to see if there is any others our there which people use themselves
m25man Posted April 27, 2011 Posted April 27, 2011 We just installed a 150 handset Mitel System over 2 sites with TalkTalk, yes its very good lots of features but not sure that it s worth the £150k they say its is.... Im no phone freak but I do like the Hotdesk function.. it's like a windows roaming profile for phones... you just log in with your extension and PIN code and whatever phone your at becomes yours! I have even got Edugeek on the customised xml browser...
glennda Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 We just installed a 150 handset Mitel System over 2 sites with TalkTalk, yes its very good lots of features but not sure that it s worth the £150k they say its is.... 150k! i thought the one i looked at at 20k was expensive! Im no phone freak but I do like the Hotdesk function.. it's like a windows roaming profile for phones... you just log in with your extension and PIN code and whatever phone your at becomes yours! I have even got Edugeek on the customised xml browser... Yeah the splicecom system would do this i'll lookup Mitel though.
m25man Posted April 27, 2011 Posted April 27, 2011 150k! i thought the one i looked at at 20k was expensive! Yeah the splicecom system would do this i'll lookup Mitel though. We actually got it for free... (on paper) but for commercial reasons I can't say anymore on here...
john Posted April 27, 2011 Posted April 27, 2011 Many big names out there for you, I have used various BT Systems which are great and despite much slagging off of BT at times the systems team are very good. Are you wanting to swap the 20+ year old system or just add an extra bit / system to work with it?
glennda Posted April 27, 2011 Author Posted April 27, 2011 Many big names out there for you, I have used various BT Systems which are great and despite much slagging off of BT at times the systems team are very good. Are you wanting to swap the 20+ year old system or just add an extra bit / system to work with it? It needs replacing - it has to be rebooted every other week as it crashes. We are looking at moving to VOIP and all new classrooms/offices over the past 3 years have had cat5 run in just terminated on a normal bt faceplate as we can then just repunch then onto a normal box. but we will need to keep existing lines and also handsets aswell in some places.
MatthewL Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 Speak to ETS Communications, we have just had another Avaya system installed to support our agile working setup, we have some 7 sites I think now all running various Avaya setups, including a call centre type thing. Nothing seems to phase them and we have the top guys doing out current install. If you look at their news section 2 of the 3 are us!!
localzuk Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 Do you have any knowledge of Linux? Or feel up to doing it yourself with Asterisk/FreePBX? How big is the system you need? ie. how many lines and extensions?
glennda Posted April 28, 2011 Author Posted April 28, 2011 Do you have any knowledge of Linux? Or feel up to doing it yourself with Asterisk/FreePBX? How big is the system you need? ie. how many lines and extensions? I did look at asterisk but needed 130 extensions plus the added complication of wanting to relocate the current system and and cabling I thought against the Idea - plus i think it would be a system that if i left somebody might struggle to pick it up (as i don't plan on being here for years!) I'll look at avaya
nicholab Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 My advice is to see the interface used to control the system make sure it is user friendly. We have a Cisco system with Zeacom voice mail the cisco interface is a bit mind bending but the Zeacom is quite good. You want a system that you can come to and easily configure how you want it. Also have you considered QOS on switches?
Quackers Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 We went down the Elastix route, Asterisk with a more friendly interface and all needed extras added in. I had never touched VoIP or telephoney before and within 2 months it was fully up and operational on the whole site, and i had lots of fun learning. There is a massive manual you can download for elastix that covers almost everything. Get an old computer, install Elastix, and softphones and have a play, see if you can get internal calls working and how easy you find it to operate. For "outside calls" we got an ISDN 30e line installed for £1000, and just rent 8 channels at £14.50 a month each.
tom_newton Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 We're using a Zultys system - we've had one in Leeds for >5 years, and our southampton and charlotte offices now also run them. Very nice system, very easy to use, bit "windows centric" but completely self contained, and works with a variety of handsets. I'd estimate you'd be looking at maybe 30-40k for that size of system, but thats a bit of guesswork. Happy to show you the UI/chat about it on the phone.
glennda Posted April 28, 2011 Author Posted April 28, 2011 Also have you considered QOS on switches? Yes - I've recently replaced our core (with a Hp 5406ZL) and most of the edge switches are hp procurve 2610's (less then 18 months) - so should all be up to the job (theres a few which are older but these will be replaced soon) @tom_newton I will look in zultys but the price we have had for the splicecom system was around 22k which i think is more our price range!
dhicks Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 i think it would be a system that if i left somebody might struggle to pick it up It's an open system, though, and there are plenty of consultants available to help on Asterisk systems. There seems to be plenty of places that provide pre-built hardware with support, too.
sdc Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 The Panasonic systems are very good value, and very reliable. Plenty of features available. The KX-TDA range is their IP range, but it's a hybrid system, so will also take non-IP handsets, which can be either proprietary Panasonic (digital) handsets or standard 2-wire (analogue) handsets.
john Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 Names to avoid - Nortel as they have gone bust, Avaya bought various chunks of them but some vendors are still selling kit from Nortel and they are not going to be carried on by Avaya in some cases so worth actualy checking and researching. I've used the following systems - Nortel (BT BCM 400), Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise, BT Versatility, BT Inspiron, Siemens HiPath. All bar the Siemens were good, I wouldn't touch Siemens again, now we may have had a pants support firm and local firm doing it but everything was a chore, very expensive and not easy to deal wtih. The Alcatel was costly but certainly worth looking at in my view as it was a 3U rack appliance, so plug and go. You said about retaining handsets, your current system probably has analogue handsets which will in a lot of cases be incompatible with the new system, you don't have to use Soft-phones with VOIP systems, you can get all physical phones like I believe @tom_newton has at Smoothwall. Its very much worth talking to BT though, as with the new BT Phone Networks (21st century network) spending 20K or so on a phone system could be risky as technology on stuff coming in could have to be modified or even be scrapped when BT change to the new systems as some services maybe presented differently in the future, such as ISDN30.
tom_newton Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 (edited) Yes - I've recently replaced our core (with a Hp 5406ZL) and most of the edge switches are hp procurve 2610's (less then 18 months) - so should all be up to the job (theres a few which are older but these will be replaced soon) @tom_newton I will look in zultys but the price we have had for the splicecom system was around 22k which i think is more our price range! I could be _waaaaaaaaay_ out on the pricing there - I was including software clients for users (not needed in dumb handsets) and 100 quid handsets like the ones our salesteam use, and not accounting for volume discount - so I may be being a bit mean to zultys but certainly it is not the cheapest system. As john said, we are 100% hardphone. Upstream we connect via ISDN30, PSTN *and* SIP Incidentally Equiinet have started to do voip stuff too... Edited April 28, 2011 by tom_newton
Ric_ Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 I went with Lync... surprisingly cheap for education and in my price comparison it was fractionally cheaper than building my own Asterisk system. It also integrates well with Exchange and Office. You can use gateway devices to connect legacy devices if needed and to connect to the PSTN. Avoid Vegastream like the plague though cos I have had all kinds of hell with my BRI gateway :-(
SYNACK Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 Avoid Samsung, their gear is from the past, thats the only explaination I can come up with. Have dealt with the Avaya stuff which is reasonable and have heard the Mitel stuff is good.
MattGreaves Posted April 28, 2011 Posted April 28, 2011 Highly recommend 3CX. Ended up having it implemented at my last workplace and worked really well. Support from 3CX was excellent!
TechMonkey Posted May 3, 2011 Posted May 3, 2011 We are getting a Panasonic system installed over the Summer. The factory is in Wales so no supply issues, all looked nice, good history, free software upgrades, expandable and we have a Panasonic system currently that has soldiered on for 15+ years so felt happy returning to them. Not sure how far away they deal but we went with Calibre. (I'm not on commission). Yell if you want more details. 1
glennda Posted May 3, 2011 Author Posted May 3, 2011 We are getting a Panasonic system installed over the Summer. The factory is in Wales so no supply issues, all looked nice, good history, free software upgrades, expandable and we have a Panasonic system currently that has soldiered on for 15+ years so felt happy returning to them. Not sure how far away they deal but we went with Calibre. (I'm not on commission). Yell if you want more details. Cheers I will give them an Email as i'm west sussex - just will double check that we have funding before i start talking to to many people. Toby
tegward Posted June 1, 2011 Posted June 1, 2011 We are currently running 2 Avaya IPO 500 across 3 sites all coming through 20 Lines of ISDN30. Looking into 5 Lines of SIP trunking for redundancy at a remote site. Also have Voicemail Pro 7 installed with SMTP backup to remote site. Runs really well, easy to manage and licensing is also clear. Also setup Campaign Manager on the voicemail server to reduce calls for the attendance team in the morning so parents can choose to go through an automated service. Dont know if this is of any help just a few ideas
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