Recommend a VOIP Business Solution

censuspro

I'm looking for some guidance on installing a VOIP solution for 8 - 10 employees.
Currently using an NEC system which is approx ten years old and because the office has moved on two occasions, the phone system has been moved and reconnected and currently not using it's full capabilities and only takes calls in and call transfers but other functionality like voicemail and direct lines no longer work and although a telephone technician attempted to fix the problem, they couldn't get it resolved and provided a quote for €2k phone system with all these bells and whistles which won't be use.

Ideally, I would like to either

a) Fix the phone system that is currently in place in order to get voicemail and direct dial functionality

b) A new phone system that has the same functionality but at a more competitive price point.

Would appreciate if any posters could point me in the right direction and if a VOIP system would suffice or would a traditional phone system be more appropriate

Mr. G

What speeds do you get from your broadband connection?

How many lines do you curently have, or how many concurrent calls would you need?

Do you have an existing lan network in place or anything?

bceltic

Disclaimer I work for Blueface

What functionality would you be looking for censuspro? A hosted pbx could be a good solution to avoid your upfront costs (Blueface / Vodafone One Net etc.) The only draw back with a plug and play hosted pbx is that certain advanced functionality may not be present on a hosted pbx compared with a traditional pbx.

Do you have someone who could configure your firewall (assuming you'll share the data & voice on one line). For added peace of mind there is always the option of having a dedicated BB connection for voice (dedicated firewall for this could be added too) depending on how bullet proof you want your voice service to be. VoIP generally stands up and falls down on strength and consistency of BB connection.

Lemo

censuspro - strangely enough I've found myself in almost preceisely the same situation as you this week. PBX has broken and am evaluating VOIP + hosted PBX - same number of users as you, we don't use any fancy PBX features (not even voicemail). Currently a bit frustrated with the sales process. Not sure potential vendors fully appreciate the leap of faith involved in switching to VOIP, e.g. wanting me to sign up to a 12/24 month contract but not particularly willing to demo their system and handsets to give reassurance.

My fallback is to get the old PBX fixed and forget about VOIP for a few years...

Mr. G

Just a warning, blatantly advertising/shilling will result in bans. I have deleted and edited a few posts here. If you wish to advertise email hello@boards.ie. There is a list of providers/hardware in with the forum charter, PM me if you want a provider/hardware supplier added.

2Shae

Disclaimer I work for an IT company who supplies Virtual PBX

Personally I supply asterisk PBX systems with Cisco phones + Blueface as a network provider.
If you are going to change make sure you change to a new age system. Most old systems are analog and cant do what new systems can.
You can do some really cool things with asterisk, record all calls, forward calls to mobiles, run multiple offices through one phone system etc, even send an email each time a call comes in (useful if you make staff have to log each call).
But also you can just have plain and simple inbound calls, direct numbers for each phone etc.
Voip's biggest advantage is you can move office with very little downtime.

Mr. G

OP, are you looking for recommendations or advice?

Lemo

In the end, we've decided to get the old PBX repaired and stick with Eircom for a while.

There are a few misconceptions which the VOIP providers are labouring under from what I can see:

- Assumption that everyone is looking for voice to e-mail and numerous other fancy features. I'd say most businesses aren't looking for this stuff. We don't even use the voicemail that exists on our current PBX. We just need to know that the company we're talking to understands our simple needs and can be trusted to get everything set up properly, don't mess up the number porting, hunting and so on. Never quite got that feeling with anyone I spoke to. Although they could certainly help me route calls to our office on the space station or create 3D holographic voicemails :-)

- Businesses need to be very assured before switching phone systems. That means the new provider must be willing and able to demo the system being offered (not just the SIP line but the handsets being sold and the virtual PBX itself).

We were very close to going with one well-known VOIP provider but the only way they could show us the handset they were offering was if we bought one and then returned it to them under their 28-day money back. Crazy. I even offered to go to their offices but still no dice.

Anyway, appreciate the various replies here. Hopefully, things will have matured in a year or two.

Mr. G

Lemo wrote: »

In the end, we've decided to get the old PBX repaired and stick with Eircom for a while.

There are a few misconceptions which the VOIP providers are labouring under from what I can see:

- Assumption that everyone is looking for voice to e-mail and numerous other fancy features. I'd say most businesses aren't looking for this stuff. We don't even use the voicemail that exists on our current PBX. We just need to know that the company we're talking to understands our simple needs and can be trusted to get everything set up properly, don't mess up the number porting, hunting and so on. Never quite got that feeling with anyone I spoke to. Although they could certainly help me route calls to our office on the space station or create 3D holographic voicemails :-)

- Businesses need to be very assured before switching phone systems. That means the new provider must be willing and able to demo the system being offered (not just the SIP line but the handsets being sold and the virtual PBX itself).

We were very close to going with one well-known VOIP provider but the only way they could show us the handset they were offering was if we bought one and then returned it to them under their 28-day money back. Crazy. I even offered to go to their offices but still no dice.

Anyway, appreciate the various replies here. Hopefully, things will have matured in a year or two.

I completely agree. Many businesses are not in the need for voicemail etc., and I have found a few providers who will not setup a closed message instead of a voicemail unless you pay a fee for it. I have a say that VoIP is good technology and you're using it when you don't realise but there is an attitude around that when you hear VoIP that it is not good quality or "too complicated". It's the complete opposite in my opinion. People have bad experiences because their system has not been configured properly or their broadband is not sufficient. In the US you have many providers, e.g. MCI or Vonage, it's used by a greater percentage of population then over here.

There is a negativeness around to change which is why I feel that VoIP hasn't taken off here in comparison to other countries. The fact that landline geographic numbers (ones given to Eircom) here are different to the geographic numbers given to providers is another reason why is some areas (in rural Ireland for example) aren't using VoIP but have the broadband for it.

Traditionally there's a concept that you have to have a landline, especially amongst the elderly population and that you have to be with Eircom because they are the only ones that will do the paper bills and you've been with them for ages and its too long to get switched etc.

In fairness to Comreg they have speeded up the porting process so now for normal lines it takes 24-48 hours. It should be less like the mobile porting process. Eircom do not make it easy.

That's Ireland for you.

Johnboy1951

It doesn't help that non-geographic numbers (076 ...) are not treated like other Irish numbers when it comes to call charges (by Eircom, don't know about others).

I had expected Comreg to force the treatment of 076 numbers as local, regardless what exchange the call is made from.

No such luck I guess

I am not going to use an 076 number as my main number for receiving calls, as long as most of those contacting me have to pay extra for the privilege of calling such a number.

Mylow

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It doesn't help that non-geographic numbers (076 ...) are not treated like other Irish numbers when it comes to call charges (by Eircom, don't know about others).

To make it worse, some providers treat the 076-1xx xxxx range as local and the 076-2xx xxxx to 076-9xxxx range as premium numbers .....go figure.

Mr. G

Mylow wrote: »

To make it worse, some providers treat the 076-1xx xxxx range as local and the 076-2xx xxxx to 076-9xxxx range as premium numbers .....go figure.

Yeah. The 076 1XXXXXX range is down as government networks. I guess that's citizens information etc.

A lot of providers, in particular eircom mark 076 as chargable outside call plans. Its not like termination is expensive to 076 as its IP based. Comreg regulations require the charge of an 076 to be the cost of a local call, so surely providers should include it in the plans so? For a company that has been dragging its heels since the state sold telecom eireann, they'll take what they can get I guess.

SpaceTime

We have given up on 076 because our Cork customers all assumed we were based in Donegal!


It's a very bad choice of prefix by comreg as it looks exactly like a geographic number in the Northwest.


They should have used an 08 prefix or maybe 03 or something.

although I've heard 03 is reserved for a future change of Dublin to 031 xxx xxxx and 032 xxx xxxx should it run out of numbers in 01