UKVoIPTalk.com

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?

"Steven" <steg@steg.com> wrote in message
news:5joak6Fj1peU1@mid.individual.net
: : 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?

I should think Gradwell could do most if not all of that. Peter Gradwell
the MD posts here occasionally. Try [url]http://www.gradwell.co.uk/voip/[/url]


Ivor

Steven wrote:
[color=blue]
> 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.[/color]

Depends how much of a benefit you'd like to see in order to counterbalance a
lack of incoming or outgoing phone calls. For some businesses it could be
fatal.
[color=blue]
> The features we'd like are:
>
> * 10 IP Phones[/color]

What's your budget?
[color=blue]
> * Ability to receive calls on 10 DDI's
> * Voicemail
> * Internal/ External Call transfer
> * Route a DDI to a teleworkers phone at home or mobile[/color]

All standard features for any IP phone system, but I recommend you steer
clear of systems that require you to license individual components
[voicemail licenses, user licenses, etc on top of the cost of the handsets]
as that's a bit of a **** on.
[color=blue]
> * The box to run everything (Preferably an all-in-1 solution, and maybe
> look into something like Asterisk later.)[/color]

Asterisk usually is all-in-one and is unlikely to require more than one
server for only 10 handsets. If you do want to move to Asterisk later, pick
a PBX that uses Asterisk-compatible handsets, ie SIP handsets, one example
of which is Mitel. A lot of Mitel's current handsets are SIP and MiNet dual
mode so can be used with both Asterisk and a Mitel controller. However, you
haven't mentioned why you don't want to just use Asterisk from the get-go?
There's plenty of Asterisk-knowledgeable people out there so finding
someone to design and install it shouldn't be a problem. Throw a brick at a
bunch of VoiP-knowlegeable people and you'll likely hit one.
[color=blue]
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?[/color]

The one thing you haven't mentioned is how many simultaneous calls you
expect to have, because that will determine how much bandwidth you'll need.
But in general, yeah stick with ISDN, because you aren't likely to be able
to afford an internet connection that can match your ISDN circuits for
reliability. You can of course mix and match, so you could have 2ch of
ISDN2e and then an ADSL Max Premium to effect cheap DDIs and LCR.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
18:34:53 up 44 days, 20 min, 3 users, load average: 0.19, 0.24, 0.25
09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

Steven laid this down on his screen :[color=blue]
> 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]

I would suggest a mixture of the two.

An IP PBX & IP Phones. ISDN lines & SIP Trunks.

You can obtain call charge rate per minutes on BT lines, using BT to
carry the calls for less than most/many/all VoIP suppliers.

Steven wrote:[color=blue]
> 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]
As a busines user, I'd echo what others have said here. Stick with ISDN
and use the VOIP for LCR. We have all our calls coming in via ISDN with
outgoing to mobile and international going via VOIP.

We use an Asterisk box with FreePBX on the front.

Steven wrote:
[color=blue]
>
> 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[/color]

Less than 10 lines is probably the sweet spot for hosted VoIP installations.

[color=blue]
> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?[/color]


You have 2 questions.


1) to have ISDN or not have ISDN

And if you don't have ISDN:

2) to have a IP PBX onsite, or just use a hosted provider.


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)

In the VoIP world, lines are a bit washy. I've spoken to lots of people
who only have 4 people in their office, but have 10 phone lines on an
old system. They don't want to risk that an inbound call will get a
busy tone, rather than hitting the voice mail or call queue. If you go
hosted, you effectively have unlimited lines into the hosting provider.


Is your traffic mainly incoming calls or out going?

Jono suggested mixing and matching. This is easily possible if you have
an IP PBX onsite.

For instance, you could take 4 channels of ISDN from BT to use for your
inbound calls, and put all your outbound calls out through a SIP
provider. This could save you a loads of ISDN line rental, but still
leave you with a backup channel to the outside world.

On the other hand, if you are at the level of getting ISDN30, then
channels don't cost that much anyway.

Tim

Tim wrote:[color=blue]
> Steven wrote:
>[color=green]
>> 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[/color]
>
> Less than 10 lines is probably the sweet spot for hosted VoIP installations.
>[color=green]
>> Easily achievable, or should we stick with ISDN?[/color]
>
> You have 2 questions.
> 1) to have ISDN or not have ISDN
> And if you don't have ISDN:
> 2) to have a IP PBX onsite, or just use a hosted provider.
>
> 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]

Thanks for all the replies.

Just to clarify our requirements:

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=blue]
> In the VoIP world, lines are a bit washy. I've spoken to lots of people
> who only have 4 people in their office, but have 10 phone lines on an
> old system. They don't want to risk that an inbound call will get a
> busy tone, rather than hitting the voice mail or call queue. If you go
> hosted, you effectively have unlimited lines into the hosting provider.
> Is your traffic mainly incoming calls or out going?[/color]

A 50-50 split.
[color=blue]
> 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?

"Steven" <steg@steg.com> wrote in message
news:5jqa55Fqf4fU1@mid.individual.net...
[color=blue]
> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?[/color]

VOIP yes, but the ADSL providers not.
Cable Internet next to ADSL, smart routing, and an externaly hosted VOIP
provider is just as reliable as ISDN.

Jack

Steven wrote:[color=blue]
> The consensus appears to be VoIP isn't quite ready for offices then?[/color]

Not at all. We use it all day everyday.

Tim

On 30 Aug, 17:45, Steven <s...@steg.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> 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!