Cheap and Reliable IP Telephony?

anomalie asks: "I am trying to sell IP telephony to my employer. The idea was shot down once already because of the cost (using a Cisco solution). I would like to find a cheap but reliable IP PBX because everyone liked the idea of IP telephony, just not the price associated with it. I need a system that could initially handle about 80 users at a single location, and eventually handle about 350 users at 7 locations. The two systems I have been looked at so far are Asterisk & Pingtel's SIPxchange IP PBX. I'm not looking here for a final solution, just some starting points for more research. Any feedback/tips/warnings from the Slashdot community?"

"I am looking to have at least the following capabilities:
-Auto attendant
-Handle a PRI (hopefully allow forwarding of old PBX DIDs)
-Handle long distance T1 (we would initially segment off some channels from our current PBX)
-Handle WAN Traffic so we could utilize our unused channels for long distance from other locations
-Forwarding of voicemails to email

Nice optional features:
-Web based GUI for voicemail administration
-GUI call manager

Eventually, we would have relay units at the other locations to handle the local calls and call routing and have 1 central PBX at corporate headquarters."

I'm just an IP phone user.

[johnnliu]

I work in a company with IP phone system. While it's good for long distance calls to branches in other cities (pay local call rates), the overall system has let us down many times.

I'm not sure whether it's that this particular service provider is no good, or whether the service itself is still unproven.

Anyway, just remember when the phone doesn't work, your internet also doesn't work.

No phone calls & no emails - might as well go to the bar.
Phones and emails are almost at the core of most businesses now, they are expected to be always working (like electricity in the building), and when they don't work, the managers get really upset.

Anyway, I don't know who (this person is probably no longer with us) got the company to use IP phones, but they have mentioned many times how much they hate the system.

Good luck. May be services in your area are much better.

Sounds bad to me.

[JMZero]

Unless you're having problems with your current phones, I'd keep them. It's almost certain you'll have some downtime during the switchover, and a few things to iron out during the startup.

I've talked to a few people who've just moved to IP based phones. While they've ended up with a system that works, they had some problems setting up. And end users didn't like the new phones much - they didn't have as many speed dial buttons and certain features were awkward (well, probably just different).

If people are complaining all the time about the phones, then this cost is OK. But if people are happy with their phones, this is going to look like a big waste of time and money.

Wait a couple years, and you've got a good chance stuff will get cheaper, better, and your old phones will look worse.

Re:You should probably think things over.

[vensub]

Please don't go to a Linux or windows based software solutions. Go to always hardware/appliance based or else you loose your job, since both OS sucks always, no matter how great/political they are!

Re:You should probably think things over.

[raju1kabir]

And, is anybody actually doing this? I would not consider running an entire offshore call center over VoIP. The cost of a dedicated network circuit would surely offset the cost of telco communications.

Now this is precisely the sort of application where VoIP does make sense. If you're filling even a moderately-sized pipe with calls a good portion of the time, then the data haul cost is a whole lot cheaper than metered phone rates - even after you throw in infrastructure and maintenance. You don't need a "dedicated network circuit", assuming that vague term means what I assume you mean.

I'd be surprised if there are any overseas call centers that don't use VoIP these days.

Satisfied Shoreline customer

[slappy]

Well, we just ripped out our (not so old) PBX in favor of the Shoreline [goshoreline.com] VoIP solution and we love it. No more calling in the vendor to move a phone, calling in the vendor to change workgroups, no more calling in the vendor to ... you get it. Now, we take care of everything with a web based admin tool, handle our own hunt groups, moves and adds, etc. Plus, the shoreline system offers soft phones which let you use a usb-headset and their call manager software so you can have an extension on your computer -- or laptop. Just today I worked from home with VPN and a soft phone and had my office extension at my house. Yes, it's pricy, but it rocks!

IP for the sake of IP

[salesgeek]

Moving to IP based phones can have some great benefits to your company. If you do it right you will end up:

- With almost unlimited flexibility for managing call routing
- Easy integration with databases for tricks like skills based call routing
- Low cost for intra-office communications
- Near perfect support for work from home employees
- Flexibility to set up spot call centers and so on
- Really cool voice mail

Unfortunately, most companies don't use a fraction of the capability of IP phones - a lot of time they end up being used just like the crappy 80's AT&T Merlin they are replacing. Oh yeah - make sure you have a really good SLA on your T's... downtime is SUPER EXPENSIVE when sales and customer service are down.

Re:You should probably think things over.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever seen a giant Lucent commercial phone switch? Plug in a dumbterm and it will proudly display UNIX SYSTEM V RELEASE 4.