Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2005
- Posts
- 8,857
- Location
- Clydebank
Hi guys wondering your thoughts on setting up a small office for 4 to 6 people and curious to know if anyone has opinions on voip ( hosted) or just getting isdn2 lines in ?
Voip or isdn2
- Thread starter whitecrook
- Start date
where i used to work, we have a complete hosted voip system from inclarity, prices were ok and the actual voip quality was good aswell, there was around 50 of us mind you. Recently however i decided to do a self hosted project serving 5 phones etc... using asterisk and some linksys PAP2T phone adapters and it is awesome, as well as being a lot cheaper, you could also use a company like vonage if you want there hardware to be preconfigured. Its really how you want to set it up, and whether you dont mind getting your hand dirty. 
hope that helps.
TLDR: VoIP is great and i would recommend it unless you have a really really really bad net connection
Will also probably work out cheaper
hope that helps.TLDR: VoIP is great and i would recommend it unless you have a really really really bad net connection
Will also probably work out cheaper
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2005
- Posts
- 8,857
- Location
- Clydebank
Looking harder voip actually seems more expensive when you go above 5 users. As there is a £10 license perhandset for a hosted solution per month
If you buy kit you pay a licence fee per port even adding an extension costs money. After 3 years the extra cost of Pbx and isdn line install is offset by the cheaper upfront but higher ongoing charges for voip. Currently I can't see the point, unless you save a lot of money on site to voip, in which case why wouldn't you just do it internally anyway
If you buy kit you pay a licence fee per port even adding an extension costs money. After 3 years the extra cost of Pbx and isdn line install is offset by the cheaper upfront but higher ongoing charges for voip. Currently I can't see the point, unless you save a lot of money on site to voip, in which case why wouldn't you just do it internally anyway
Associate
- Joined
- 14 Apr 2008
- Posts
- 1,230
- Location
- Manchester
Depending on the number of users it may be best to go for a hybrid solution consisting of -
Local PBX for all your users and internal numbers with trunks out on - SIP, ISDN, PSTN (as appropriate)
So if you have PSTN for ADSL then you could use it, it depends on tariffs available from your telco.
We use 2x PSTN lines as primary with international and secondary lines via voip. We've also got direct dial voip extensions which is handy sometimes.
Local PBX for all your users and internal numbers with trunks out on - SIP, ISDN, PSTN (as appropriate)
So if you have PSTN for ADSL then you could use it, it depends on tariffs available from your telco.
We use 2x PSTN lines as primary with international and secondary lines via voip. We've also got direct dial voip extensions which is handy sometimes.
Associate
- Joined
- 3 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 1,890
- Location
- South London
Personally for a small outfit I'd go the other way and get something like asterix/ FreePBX and some cheap SIP phones for the local stuff, then plumb in an ISDN 2 for outbound trunk. Or indeed SIP trunks. Depending on what you're doing with it either will suit. Though for smaller outfits SIP trunks are cheap for calls and rental. Note this isn't the same as a hosted solution as you'll host your own PBX to do the call routing and won't pay any rental license fee per handset (using FreePBX etc). You just pay for as many DDIs and concurrent channels you want on the trunks. ISDN is arguable in some cases but it's benefits are limited and it's considerably more expensive. E.G Credit card machines don't always like IP trunks due to out of band signaling on some of them not getting encoded, in this case a proper TDM trunk would be preferable.