VoIP for SMB

[MonsterMoshi]

Hello all,

Following on from the home voip thread, my company is moving offices shortly and we need a new phone system at the current system simply isn’t going to work.

Currently we have two lines and called get forwarded to the second when the first is busy. 0845 number forwards to the landline

This works fine in a small open plan office but our new location has multiple office spaces so we need to be able to forward between handsets and take more than two calls simultaneously

i’m struggling to get my head around the number of options between cloud hosted services, SIPs, IP PBXs and every other term I’ve come across!

Could someone share any experience they have with various providers and hardware or point me in the right direction?

Some requirements

• Works with handsets as well as soft phones
• Forward between handsets
• Up to 10 handsets
• API to integrate with our crm (nice to have)
• 100% reliable / failover to landline (we’ll be on a bonded internet connection with 4G backup but failover would be handy)

Cheers!

 

[Armageus]

What's the budget and who do you expect to handle support?

If the budget is exceptionally limited, then you can set up an open source PBX https://www.freepbx.org/ (based on https://www.asterisk.org/) that works with most IP handsets.
https://www.3cx.com/ is another option, and they currently do a free 1 year cloud hosted option.

At the other of end of the spectrum you have full on enterprise systems from the likes of Avaya, Cisco, Mitel etc that others will be able to advise about.

I’m struggling to get my head around the number of options between cloud hosted services, SIPs, IP PBXs and every other term I’ve come across!

Cloud Hosted just means that the PBX is hosted elsewhere and only accessible via the internet rather than having any on-premises equipment. SIP is the technology used for VOIP trunks, and IP PBX generally means any PBX that runs on IP/SIP rather than analogue phone lines.


At work we presently (and for a number of years) use https://www.swyx.com/. It's a Windows based PBX, that's internally SIP based, but we have ISDN30 cards to allow our existing analogue numbers (and faxes) to still be received, Pricing is generally a lot less than Avaya etc, but is just as fully featured, and have had very few issues over the years.

 

[Avalon]

10 users and the fact you’re asking suggests your company doesn’t have someone to support this, i’d Honestly suggest for the minimal cost involved that you look at a hosted option like voipfone. You pay an insignificantly small amount per user and have the flexibility to add capacity as/when required with skilled support included in the price.

I set up my own business the same way, it was all but faultless for years and a fraction of the cost of our previous 3 business line set-up. Hosted means you can admin it from anywhere, you don’t loose telephony if your local connection goes down (divert to any number in secconds) etc. The Snom phones are decent imo, perfect for a small office setup like this.

 

[Caged]

Just use BT Cloud Phone

 

[MonsterMoshi]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions!
Looking at the options above, the PBX system is likely going to be too much hard work to set up and maintain
I will be doing it as I look after most of IT alongside my main development job so the easier to set up and maintain the better!

The voipfone option looks pretty good
I’ll sign up and give that a try

BT cloud phone is a good suggestion but unfortunately seems to require a BT business broadband package which we won’t have

 

[Duke]

I used voipfone in the past (only me using it so not the same quantity) and found it great. Easy to set up, I had a cordless set of DECT voip phones on it and forwarding to mobile which was a fraction of the cost of Virgin Media. Also had recorded intro and menu system so it sounded professional for a one man band.

 

[MonsterMoshi]

We have made the move on voipfone
Seems to do everything we need and more. I have tested using the Zoiper app and we have some handsets on the way.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions!