New Business Phone System - recommendations?

sixeighth · 20 Mar 2011

Hi there,

I work for a charity that will be moving to new premises later this year. We will be looking to install a new phone system but, as we don't have in-house expertise (I'm the closest as I work in IT), we need to ask around for suggestions so I thought I'd try here.

So, would you be able to recommend a phone system suitable for an open plan office with up to 40 users? I expect we'll want to consider a VoIP system but don't really know enough about that (I don't like the idea of having all our comms in one basket).

We run a Windows network and use Outlook 2007 so it would be good to avail of voicemail integration with Exchange.

Lectrician · 21 Mar 2011

For a smaller system look at the NEC XN120.

Going larger with greater LAN incorporation, the NEC SV

nordberg73 · 21 Mar 2011

Avaya IP Office 500 with digital handsets.

sixeighth · 22 Mar 2011

Many thanks for the replies - it will take me a bit longer to research these but great to have recommendations.

dannyboi2003 · 23 Mar 2011

The LG-Ericsson IPECS (VOIP) system is worth looking at, i hear what your saying about all your eggs in one basket but here we have 700+ IP handsets and i can count on one hand the number of outages we have in a year and none of those have been network related, they were all faults with our incoming lines from BT. As long as you buy good network switches such as Cisco/HP then you can almost install and forget about them. Its also far more flexible as you dont need to install additional telephone cabling and depending on the VOIP handsets they can share the same network connection as your pc's and can be powered directly from the network switch using POE (Power Over Ethernet).

sixeighth · 23 Mar 2011

Thanks for that Dannyboi.

It's all new to me so I have a fair bit of homework to do (great to have something concrete to go on though!).

c4chan · 29 Mar 2011

i did manage to set-up a voip systems using FreePBX (based on asterisk) which is installed on a server provided from http://www.cbsys.net/
We used the cisco 504g ip handsets, installed an sdsl broadband line with junpier networks ssg5 firewall.
We ported from bt isdn to Gradwell.net and the overall the systems worked very well indeed. We had low maintainance overheads as CBsys performed the paid maintainance and implmented the features we needed upon demand.

I think this form of set-up is the future of office phone systems.

is is possible to configure the systems to use isdn for incoming and broadband for outgoing for low cost calls

another company we considered were coms.com or suretecsystems.com/

worth looking into.

sixeighth · 30 Mar 2011

Thanks for that c4chan. I did look briefly at asterix which looks great but would require a fair bit of time from us to get up to speed on it (limited resources).

bernardgreen · 30 Mar 2011

When deciding on the system think about what would be needed in the event of a power supply failure to the building.

A simple system that can operated for a while on battery power may be necessary.

And ensure that at least one accessible phone will remain working on the BT line to enable phone calls to be made during a power cut.

electronicsuk · 30 Mar 2011

If you want simplicity and minimal upfront costs then a hosted system such as ThinkGrid may be ideal for you. Failing that, it doesn't take a particularly high-spec machine to run TrixBox, which you can download an an ISO and use to install a pre-configured version of CentOS complete with Asterisk and the FreePBX GUI. All in all, it's pretty easy to use, and I expect both of these solutions will be far more cost-effective than anything manufacturer-specific.

Oh, and this may well be against forum rules, in which case mods please feel free to remove, but I can put you in touch with a company that'll be able to provide any connectivity you require for this project, i.e. leased lines, bonded connections, etc.

sixeighth · 31 Mar 2011

I think we should be looking at a hosted option as well so, yes, any recommendations would be welcome.

Thanks.

c4chan · 31 Mar 2011

Several compaines i stay in contact with for hosted VOIP are:

1. Coms.com
2. Gradwell.com
3. suretectelecom.com/
4. http://www.gradwell.com/partner/list

yaleguy3 · 8 Apr 2011

We have the IPECS system installed by Digitel and run on isdn lines. This also provides our broadband either by wireless router or plugging straight from the handset to the PC.
Works fine except for some strange reason on one site we can dial out without usig area codes locally but on the other we have to use the area code even when making local calls???
One thing you will need other than a robust system is phone training. make sure you get what you need. Nothing worse than staff dropping lines thay can't retrieve again.

bernardgreen · 8 Apr 2011

yaleguy3 said:
Works fine except for some strange reason on one site we can dial out without usig area codes locally but on the other we have to use the area code even when making local calls???

Which suggests the line(s) are not connected to the local exchange but access the network via a remote or non geographic node in the same way as mobile phones access the wired telephone network.

sixeighth · 21 Apr 2011

Still looking at options. Had a few quotes in for Trixbox, Mitel and iPECS. Still to talk to more suppliers re hosted VoIP although conversations on the phone have not inspired confidence (call quality with two providers was not great).

One bit of good news we've had is we may be able to get cable Broadband at the new office. If we can go for a dedicated service then hosted VoIP might be an option although there's not as much of a difference in pricing as I expected between hosted VoIP and iPECS (so far).

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New Business Phone System - recommendations?

yaleguy3

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