ISDN 30 down to ISDN 2

[R.O.S.S.I]

Hi all just a quick question. We currently have ten lines on ISDN30 at our head office but were looking at cutting some costs as we feel we don't need ten lines. Now I know we can go down to 8 lines on our current ISDN30 but to go any lower we'll need to switch to ISDN2.

Does anyone know if this would cost a lot to do? We currently have a Nortel BCM50 phone system and a BT sales guy quoted more than £1000 if we wanted to reduce down to 6 lines and onto ISDN2. Is this realistic? Or was the sales guy just quoting an obscene price to put us off downgrading?

I don't know much about telephony stuff so he may well have been telling the truth but let's face it its not uncommon for a sales man to twist the truth!

Also is the price for ISDN30 lines standard? I've just checked BTs business site and that quotes a Max of £22 per line on ISDN30 but were paying £57+VAT per line, does that seem right? I'm going to query it with our BT Local Business sales rep later today but wondered if any knowledgeable folk off here knew much about the pricing!

 

[#Chri5#]

The hardware cost will depend on what ISDN cards / modules you have in the BCM50. If you've only got an ISDN-30 card then you'll obviously need to buy an ISDN-2 card. Some PBXs have ISDN-2 built-in, so worth checking if you could support 2 x ISDN2 (as an example) with what you already have.

I've got customer a moving from ISDN-30 to ISDN-2 as part of an office move. We're not charging them for the hardware changes as we'll have the ISDN-30 card back and that covers the cost of a PBX upgrade with ISDN-2 as standard (all Siemens kit).

Ask the salesman if you are keeping the ISDN-30 card afterwards or if he's pulling a fast one by selling you an ISDN-2 card and having the ISDN-30 one back.

I've just looked at the current costs that customer is paying and we are charging £15+VAT per ISDN-30 channel, with CLI and DDIs extra. 8 channels with 130 DDIs (!) and CLI comes to just under £170+VAT/month.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

The hardware cost will depend on what ISDN cards / modules you have in the BCM50. If you've only got an ISDN-30 card then you'll obviously need to buy an ISDN-2 card. Some PBXs have ISDN-2 built-in, so worth checking if you could support 2 x ISDN2 (as an example) with what you already have.

I've got customer a moving from ISDN-30 to ISDN-2 as part of an office move. We're not charging them for the hardware changes as we'll have the ISDN-30 card back and that covers the cost of a PBX upgrade with ISDN-2 as standard (all Siemens kit).

Ask the salesman if you are keeping the ISDN-30 card afterwards or if he's pulling a fast one by selling you an ISDN-2 card and having the ISDN-30 one back.

I've just looked at the current costs that customer is paying and we are charging £15+VAT per ISDN-30 channel, with CLI and DDIs extra. 8 channels with 130 DDIs (!) and CLI comes to just under £170+VAT/month.

Well I think we might just go down to 8 channels at the moment and keep on ISDN30, but excuse my ignorance, what are CLI's and DDI's and how do I find out if we have these?

We bought the phone system outright so nothing is leased from BT so am I right in thinking that our recurring monthly charges should just be line rental and call costs?

 

[#Chri5#]

CLI - Calling (or Connected) Line Identification - sends / shows the phone number of the line making the call
DDI - Direct Dial Inwards - where you have a range of phone numbers so people can have a direct number to their desk

Should be easy to work out if you have either of these.

You might pay maintenance on the PBX, but otherwise should just be rental + calls.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

We don't have DDI. We have just one phone number for the office, which hits one phone then goes into a loop. People don't have direct dials to their own desk.

Not sure about CLI, we can't see the phone number of people ringing in externally, but if I phone say my personal mobile from any office phone it shows as just one number. Is that CLI?