I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
We need an office phone system for 20-50+ people. I’ve used Comverge from CallPlus before and that seemed fine and had good call charges for Australia and the UK. They also offered 0800 services etc.
Some of the hosted VOIP based solutions we’ve seen are more expensive than drip paying a PABX. Having hardware on site seems so 2006 - preference is a hosted solution.
No one seems to have embraced a Live Communications Server hosted solution yet - though I’m sure that won’t be a great experience for the Mac users in the Office.
It’s a clean install, new office, on CityLink. We’ll have offices in other centres as well.
Has anyone any recent experience with selecting an Office phone system?
blog
Rod, Grant S has just worked through this for OAS and iknow so he will have some material on it.
Cheers
Colin
Well, the commverge system that you talk about (literally) has gone down 3 times in the last 2 weeks….. :(
I have a voip system at home with WorldExchange - works nice. Maybe ping them? http://www.wxc.co.nz
Not trying to spam your blog Rod, but our company sells VoIP PBX systems that I think would suit your situation.
I would shy away from a hosted PBX because should your internet go down, at least with our systems, you have the option of backup phone lines. A business can’t afford to be without their phones.
More information on our website, http://www.3bitvoice.co.nz
Regards
Nathan
Actually the Hosted product is geat if something should go down, you can access the web portal from anywhere in the world and redirect your business anywhere you want. Unlike traditional TDM services that ties you to your facility today, but if your people cannot make it in then it’s moot. Hosted allows you to continue to be in business because the system is never in your building and anywhere you have access to the internet you have access to your business.
Good Luck. CM
We swear by Asterisk on a reasonable server. We run a number of Linksys ATA’s internally (Dick Smith sell them at $98 and you can get 2 extensions per ATA) off the network to the Asterisk server. We also run a GSM Cellular Trunk Unit connected by a voice card (sub $300) to route mobile calls over our Talk Zone Zero plan (its cool as I can have desk and mobile ring at same time when someone rings my extension and also dial back into extensions at $0/min). Our connection to the “world” is via a local VoIP provider with a local NZ number allocated and we have a number of international numbers allocated and terminating here from http://www.voxbone.com.
We’re also operating overnight answering for the UK from an Asterisk server located in the UK as a mini call centre. Works just fine!
PBX vendors can be quite expensive so get one of your Linux guru’s onto it - it is a viable commercial system.
Good luck!
Rod, we had a great experience with 3Com’s NBX solutions. Ran global distributed PBX for offices in Concord, MA, London, UK, Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA, with softphones on laptops, good integration with Outlook and extensions in partners and managers homes to support teleworking.
Michael
Exchange 2007!
Happy New Year, Rod.
One word - Asterisk (as mentioned above). (
Set it up in 30 mins or less (livecd iso)
http://www.asterisknow.org/
How to on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONOxNJquatk
[...] Thanks for your suggestions on an Office Phone System. [...]