I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Thanks for your suggestions on an Office Phone System.
Open Source PABX software Asterisk seems to be what the smart people are using and has the sort of characteristics that we expected out of a phone system in 2007. As we’re all about SaaS and the power of the Internet we want to practice what we preach.
Jamie from FX Networks is the guru and FX are setting it all up for us and managing the service. We’re ordering Linksys handsets and there are also adapters so that we can plug in those high quality Polycom conferencing phones. There are several good softphone applications available. Another great feature is that Asterisk has Teleconferencing, so we can set up an additional ddi and have many people dial in. Much better than a service where you pay for all legs.
As FX spreads their network out in NZ and links to other providers overseas we should see our call charges drop further. “A Race to Zero” as Jamie says.
It’s important that New Zealand businesses know about these types of services and products. The promise of the IP world is that we can operate globally. A clever communications system is a great way to get close to your global customers.
The costs are a fraction of what the traditional suppliers were talking. We’d rather spend our money on our smart people.
blog
03 Dunedin gateway on VIX via FX from next week hopefully.
Glad you got in touch with the right people.
Jamie can make your VOIP “connecting with the markets” idea work too.
Hi Rod,
We looked at this before Christmas and decided to go with Trixbox (repackaged Asterisk with more features and an improved GUI). That beta of AsteriskNow looks to be a vast improvement though.
James
Would echo your comments about Asterisk and FX. Only thing we’ve learnt is that using a different ISP provider to FX for internet (and FX for VOIP) caused all sorts of headaches! DON’T DO IT.
FX do a good job of handling the QoS aspects when they can control the internet connection also.
And oh yeah, avoid the Uniden phones. I still can’t figure out how to re record my voicemail message without digging out the 50 page manual. But heck, gives us a good story to tell…
Bit late, but spotted this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/81332178/ thought you might be interested in following this - interested in your thoughts.