VOIP for business

shayser

Recently an engineer was on-site with us repairing a network server. The telephone system is in a rack next to the network rack. He commented that we really should be using VOIP instead of the PRI setup we have.

I know very little about VOIP really, apart from the basic concept. Am looking for some general advice at this stage about changing from our existing sytem to VOIP, before I would go to providers.

We are a call centre with 2 PRIs with BT. About 30 DECT phones use one and about 15 use the other. 7 analog phones also. There are two DSL lines, Smart 6mb and BT 3mb. The BT line is part of the telephone package.

We are on a good call rate, don't have the exact rates to hand, but I believe it's Band 9, same rates as the banks.Would need to look up the monthly/annual call spend (writing this from home). BT support is €3000 per year. There is also a voice recorder from another company in place - a windows server that costs the same in annual maintenance/support.

Would it be worthwhile to change to VOIP? Would it be cheaper and would it provide the same features? Our current system is about 3 years old.

joePC

What exactly do BT support for €3000 / year? The phone system?
You’re paying €3000 per year maintenance for a voice recording system

You’re Paying €6000 per year on Maintenance for a phone system.

OK then you would be an ideal candidate for a VOIP PBX system. Now when I say VOIP I don’t mean calling people over the internet, Internal VOIP with an Asterisk server terminating your 2 PRI lines and 30 Dect phones using channel banks or even better you would replace the handsets with SIP devices.

Rough Costing,

2x Servers (€2,400) [1x for failover]
30x Polycom 501 IP Phones (€4,500)
Dual PRI appliance (€1,000)

Total For VOIP phone system: €7,900

No more maintenance costs, simple administration, outstanding features. The ability to test voip calls without changing lines, no risk what so ever.

Drop me a PM if you need more info. Cheers, Joe

JohnnieM

Can he integrate the call recording with the asterix system?Whats the interface?

Rather_b_diving

Asterisk has the full suite of call centre features such as IVR, Call recording, call distribution. It's not all plain sailing though, if you don't have a good IT person who knows linux and IP then you could be asking for a lot of pain.

I would definitely recommend Asterisk but there are a number of companies now offering a "managed service" that take away some of the techie pains of implementation and management they may not save you money on your current spend but you'll get a lot more productivity for your money - it can transform the way you operate the call centre.

I don't earn commission so I'm not recommending any here but PM me if you're interested and I can give you the names of a few that I've dealt with and what you should expect to pay.

sirlinux

asterisk call recording works perfectly it's an integrated feature, if you choose the right hardware, the wrong hardware and it's a complete mess, there are a couple of people selling it as a solution on that alone just bridging between a phone system and a PRI so it's transparent.

jonnybax

When my other website gets going, we'll be requiring a telephone system for support, sales etc, and we're thinking of going the VoIP route.

I'm a personal user of Skype and find it fantastic. Particularly calling home from America at 1c a min! Crazy.

Is Skype stable enough for business? I've found the quality good so far, but there's the odd delay, which wouldn't be great when dealing with potential customers.

Would Skype be the best option, or are there tailored-for-business providers out there?

jonnybax