UKVoIPTalk.com

Tim wrote:[color=blue]
> Steven wrote:[color=green]
>> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?[/color]
>
> Not at all. We use it all day everyday.[/color]

Care to expand on that with some information about your setup? :)

theipguy wrote:[color=blue]
> On 30 Aug, 17:45, Steven <s...@steg.com> wrote:[color=green]
>> Hello all,
>>
>> We will be changing offices over the next month or two. Our current
>> phone gear is leased from the owners and won't be coming with us. It's
>> ISDN using Avaya kit; we use 10 lines on there.
>>
>> We were thinking about a move to VoIP. Is this feasible for a business
>> with a measily 10 lines or so, or is the business world not quite ready
>> for that? I accept there'd be a risk of broadband going down, but with
>> POTS fall-over from the VoIP provider we could live with that... IF
>> there'd be benefits elsewhere.
>>
>> The features we'd like are:
>>
>> * 10 IP Phones
>> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
>> * Voicemail
>> * Internal/ External Call transfer
>> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile
>> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
>> look into something like Asterisk later.)
>>
>> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?[/color]
>
> In my view, it is feasible to go VoIP- only if you have a dedicated
> broadband line for voice. ADSLMax perhaps? And there's Swyx and
> VOIspeed to consider as well as Asterisk...If I were moving office I
> think I'd go VoIP only![/color]

Well, that was my thinking as well... It'd be nice to go with a
relatively new technology, but if it falls on its face the MD won't be
too impressed :)

A company has quoted £2k for a phone/PBX, then 2x ISDN lines from BT
would be £180+v/q. So £2k up front and £846 a year. (It'd be a Panasonic
PBX, one of those dedicated things that I doubt is anywhere as
configurable as what as Asterisk box would be if we went with one of
those later.)

10x VOIP phones would work out about £1k, then looking at something like
Centrex with Gradwell works out pretty cheap. Say £60 a month for an
ADSL Max line and that should carry 3/4 external calls easily?

But then another poster on one of the uk.telecom groups has just been on
complaining about Gradwell! I doubt it's them personally, probably more
that the technology just can't be relied upon, rather than a fault with
that company.

Any views or experiences from people who've gone VoIP only would be
appreciated.. With info about your setup!

Steven wrote:[color=blue]
> Tim wrote:[color=green]
>> Steven wrote:[color=darkred]
>>> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?[/color]
>>
>> Not at all. We use it all day everyday.[/color]
>
> Care to expand on that with some information about your setup? :)[/color]

We have Snom phones in the office (Mainly 360s, but with some 370s, 320s
and a 300). Also a few Siemens Dect phones to walk around with.

These all connect to an asterisk box (IC talk variety) which is onsite.
Gradwell hold our main incoming number, which they deliver on SIP to
the asterisk box.

We have various outbound providers setup on PBX, set to failover in case
of failure.

On our ADSL line we have a CTX1000 to traffic shape.

Our PBX is on a public IP address, so it is really easy for remote users
to connect to it. Some phones are on public IPs, others are behind NAT.

We have had a SIP based office phone system since December 2002.
Initially we connected to ISDN2 lines in the office, giving us 4 voice
channels. Remote users connected to the office SIP system.

When we got ADSL we started to put out outbound calls down the ADSL into
a SIP provider. This was because the ISDN lines weren't really enough -
we wanted to makesure we never missed an incoming call.

Then we moved offices in October 2006. Initially we left an ISDN
gateway in the old office to deliver calls to the PBX in the new office.
After our number port went through, we cancelled the ISDN lines. This
was partly driven because BT wouldn't allow us to take our number to the
new premises.




Tim Bray

Tim wrote:[color=blue]
> Steven wrote:
>
> If you really need 10 lines, then you aren't going to get enough
> bandwidth on a normal ADSL line to support 10 calls. (well, not without
> dodgy compression which won't sound so good)
>[/color]
Using the asterisk-guru bandwidth calculator (which I know is only a
vague guideline), 10 simultaneous calls using G.729a over trunked IAX2,
would use 94.84 Kbps in each direction.

I'd hardly call G.729 a dodgy compression method.

A more important consideration in my opinion is how reliable and
consistent your internet connection is.

A lot of the time you'd only notice short intertmittent loss of signal
(which is common with many ADSL connections) when you start using
realtime services such as VoIP.

hi
[color=blue]
> The 10 DDI's aren't essential. In fact, probably a luxury. The office
> works fine with one number at the moment; The important bit is we have a
> phone on each of the ten desks. There's very rarely more than 3 calls
> going on simultaneously with the outside world. Maybe one or two
> internal calls on top of that, but I presume this traffic wouldn't go
> out over the Internet and back? If a limit was set of 3 external calls
> it would probably go unnoticed.[/color]

It depends on the way it is setup. If your hosted voip/centrex provider
uses asterisk, then internal calls likely will go out+in - but it's not
a problem.

ADSL Max (8 meg down, 800k up) will give you 10 concurrent calls, so you
could dedicate an ADSL like to VoIP phones.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Jono suggested mixing and matching. This is easily possible if you have
>> an IP PBX onsite.[/color]
>
> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?[/color]

I think it depends on your attitude to risk. As a hosted VoIP provider i
can point to multiple thousands of clients like yourselves on our books
who now only have one analogue line, broadband and a couple of mobiles
as their only 'alternative' to their VoIP service, and it works ok. I
can't say it is perfect - but it does work.

However, it's risky, because it's new, fairly unproven (only thousands
of people doing it rather than millions) and the software does crash
occasionally cutting off your phone call.

ISDN apparently doesn't do this - but I hear plenty of horror stories of
people with ISDN pbxes, and have one client who uses VoIP as a backup
for their ISDN system!

cheers
peter

hi
[color=blue]
> But then another poster on one of the uk.telecom groups has just been on
> complaining about Gradwell! I doubt it's them personally, probably more
> that the technology just can't be relied upon, rather than a fault with
> that company.[/color]

We have a few customers with bad combinations of ADSL providers, ADSL
routers, internal network setups. We also have a few issues with our
asterisk platform dropping audio occasionally.

On the flip side, we have quite a big engineering & technical staff, a
very nice load testing system and a good handle on what the problems are
and how to fix them - so where the customers have patience, we are doing
just that.

We also have sufficient numbers of happy customers for us to know that
we're doing the right thing, and if we get it working perfectly, we're
onto a winner!

cheers
peter

Peter Gradwell wrote:[color=blue]
> ISDN apparently doesn't do this - but I hear plenty of horror stories of
> people with ISDN pbxes, and have one client who uses VoIP as a backup
> for their ISDN system![/color]

About 18 months ago, I had an ISDN line down for about a week while BT
got around to fixing it.


Also, you can only receive calls on an ISDN line, on the end of that
single line.

With a VoIP service provider, you can receive those calls pretty much
anywhere you can get a decent internet connection.

Tim

Thomas Kenyon wrote:[color=blue]
> I'd hardly call G.729 a dodgy compression method.
>[/color]

Personally, I can't cope with G.729 calls. After a few minutes of
listening to a concentrating type phone call, I start to feel ill.

Also, without header compression or IAX2 bonding, you don't get that
much benefit of G.729. There is a very large IP overhead for the amount
of data.
[color=blue]
> A more important consideration in my opinion is how reliable and
> consistent your internet connection is.[/color]

Agreed.

Tim

Tim wrote:
[color=blue]
> Peter Gradwell wrote:[color=green]
>> ISDN apparently doesn't do this - but I hear plenty of horror stories of
>> people with ISDN pbxes, and have one client who uses VoIP as a backup
>> for their ISDN system![/color]
>
> About 18 months ago, I had an ISDN line down for about a week while BT
> got around to fixing it.
>
>
> Also, you can only receive calls on an ISDN line, on the end of that
> single line.
>
> With a VoIP service provider, you can receive those calls pretty much
> anywhere you can get a decent internet connection.[/color]

Does anybody offer a hybrid IP/ISDN connection? So one could have a couple
of channels of ISDN2 + an IP trunk, set up so that if either was congested
[or offline for that matter], incoming calls could fail over to the other?

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