ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

We're currently looking to the costings and pros/cons of switching to VoIp and just have some questions if anyone who knows would care to answer.

Setup: Small business, currently 3 voice lines rounted to a number of phones via a PABX switchboard and 1 independent fax/ADSL line. We want to retain 2 of the normal voice phone lines (plus the ASDL line) and add a further 2 VOIP lines via a VOIP gateway/router box giving 4 voice lines in total all acessable via the current PABX switchboard. We currently have ADSL broadband running at 60k through a USB modem serving shared internet to other PCs via winXP on the gateway computer on the usual 10/100 wired LAN setup.

Firstly, equipment:

There seems loads of voip boxes out there, anyone care to recomend a VOIP gateway box that supports a minimum of 2 seperate lines and preferably with a built in Ethernet router.

I understand that a USB ADSL modem won't work with this (or needs the gateway PC left on 24/7). So we need a Ethernet ADSL modem...would our ISP (currently BT business broadband) have any problem with this? And would this be able to stay connected to the net without any PCs switched on (unlike the USB modem )??

And finally...We need a Voip provider, there seems to be all sorts of companies popping up, so really need some pointers in the best direction...most of our calls are UK local, national, and mobiles in that order, so a service tailored to that would be the ideal.

And of course...bosses orders..VERY tight budget! So no fancy megabucks solution systems/companies

Also, is 60K broadband fast enough for this? Internet use is usually only basic e-mail stuff.

Any pointers would be most welcome....google can only do so much

HHxx

This is a massive question..

I've only dealt with the large enterprise systems or a small scale linux based system for home.

At home I run a linux box with the open source pbx called Asterisk. Its a pc with line cards and a ethernet interface.

Do you want a company to support the solution or support it yourself is a question you need to answer.

Sure, you can buy a router which pretty much does all this for you, some have FXO and FXS interfaces, 1 type connects to a phone line like a modem, the other allows you to connect analogue phones. The routers that are voip capable with built in ethernet switches will support a form of qos which priorities traffic for you.

There so much to type about this...

Did you want to trunk into your current pbx? Do you want voicemail? Cost of voip phone handsets.. The list is endless as I don't know about your current setup, if you have vectoring of some sorts on the system etc...

Your 60k line you are referring to, I'm assuming this is a 512kb line, sure this can support a few voip calls. You are more limited by the upload speed of adsl lines. You probably don't have a sla on the line and it could potentially go down and you may not have a guaranteed fix time etc.

So, some things to google on, Asterisk, Draytek Vigor router, Zyxel do some routers for voip.. For voip providers (literally hundreds), I use sipgate.

Sorry, did start in a structured way but I just ended up typing loads as it came out of my head in no particular order.

Just skimmed over what I wrote and its a right mess. This will probably make you more confused as I have thought about too much..

Errm, happy googling.

H

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I pretty much already mentioned the intention to use the current PABX system just running the new Voip lines into switchboard unit via a Voip gateway box, so no new handsets etc, and as much independency from the existing PCs as possible so no interface cards etc. (except the ethernet for the existing network, of course).

Yes the ADSL is 512Kbps, (whick IS about 60k/bytes ) Not sure what the upload speed is but its probably quite restrictive, and that's the main factor I suppose. But there is the option to increase the bandwidth

Don't need any installers or "telecoms solution services", found all the boxes and equipment thats needed...just need to know which ones are the best and which ones to avoid (dodgy firmware, poor quality/performance etc). That being the ADSL modems and a Voip gateway box.

Same goes for the providers really - as you say there are loads. I'd rather learn from somebody elses mistakes

GaryK

Ali,

We're a telecoms provider and we are doing VoIP although to be honest we are in limited trial with it at the moment. We are also a small switch reseller too and we supply/install/maintain Elmeg which are a german manufacturer and we have just put a SIP card into out switch which allows us to keep all our existing digital phones and all the PBX features but with the ability to route calls over VoIP. The SIP card itself supports 4 VoIP phones which integrate with the rest of the system.

I cant see how unless your PABX supports it that you will be able to transfer calls between extensions unless you can do trunk to trunk and have inbound numbers for each VoIP phone and not sure this would work.

We are also doing a white-label VoIP soft PBX which is configurable via a web browser which does voice mail, call forwarding etc. but again I dont think you can transfer from your existing handsets into those extensions so integrating your VoIP phones and PABX phones is very tricky if at all do-able.

As regards equipment yes you will need a router that offers Quality of Service so you can partition say 50-60K just for VoIP or we are doing a two site install where we are putting in dedicated ADSL just for the VoIP because ADSL is pretty cheap these days and our VoIP partner offers ADSL which gives us a backbone straight into their circuits.
Phones are important too, we only use Cisco or our Elmeg phones (identical to SNOM), grandstream and alot of the budget phones are pretty poor.

As for choice of router we are currently using a Zyxel but that is just one part of the puzzle, the provider, the phone and the level of connectivity between your ADSL provider and SIP provider are all key.

What you may also find as well for a decent VoIP provider the call rates for UK Local/National and Mobile arent that different from traditionally switched minutes. You can go cheap but quality typically suffers, we can go out at 1p minute local/national for very average quality or 1.4p minute for high quality. Obviously VoIP->VoIP is free but certainly for businesses where the uptake is slower most of your traffic will be VoIP->PSTN.

One other thing to bear in mind is numbering ranges, some VoIP providers only let you have 0845/0870 for inbound some have number ranges covering major cities 0207/0208 and some have a complete range, some providers can also port an existing PSTN number to VoIP.

If you need any further info then please PM me.

Cheers

Gary