Small office, worth a move to VOIP?

zappb

Sorry - I'm sure these questions have been answered many times before.

We are a small office with 10 staff,

Currently we have 5 lines coming into our phone system,

1. split for fax / dsl
2. The other 4 are just normal phone lines - so we can have 4 dialing out or income calls at any time.

Monthly cost is about 450 for line rental and call charges - calls mainly to Irish mobiles and landlines, some UK calls.

With vodafone at the moment - 8 meg dsl with 1 meg upload. Could upgrade to their 12 meg download, 2 meg upload for an extra 30 - 40 euro per month.

1. Is 2 meg upload enough for voip for a small office like ours? anyone know any decent internet providers with better upload speed?
2. How much very roughly for new voip phones for 10 people, and is there any other equipment needed?
3. Can you keep your old numbers?
4. Would there be a cost saving?
5. What happens if the internet went down?

Snaga

[*]Is 2 meg upload enough for voip for a small office like ours? anyone know any decent internet providers with better upload speed?

2Mb should be plenty as long as your router is QoS capable (and configured correctly!). A single uncompressed call (G711) will be just shy of 90Kbps so you will fit plenty in a 2Mb link - but the traffic MUST be prioritised correctly by the router or your gonna have a bad time.

[*]How much very roughly for new voip phones for 10 people, and is there any other equipment needed?

This depends on the type of system you need, you can pick up 2 line phones for as little as 50/60eur up to well over 100eur depending on make/model. Receptionist phones with more lines would cost more.

Or you could go the ATA route and keep your analogue phones (Some SIP pbx's have this functionality built in).

[*]Can you keep your old numbers?

Porting numbers should not be a problem with most Voip providers.

[*]Would there be a cost saving?

Depends on the providers rates, you are generally just using VOIP as a replacement for the analogue lines to get to the Public Telephone network (and saving appropriate line rental). The providers then have different rates depending on destination - find out your own office calling profile and shop around here.

Or if you have a SIP PBX and the VOIP providers you are looking at are only charging per call, then you can have several providers and route calls to the cheaper provider for each destination.


[*]What happens if the internet went down?

If each handset registers directly with the Voip providers SIP servers then you wont be making or receiving any calls.

If you are using a SIP compatible PBX in your office that can do failover or LeastCostRouting with analogue backup - then you can keep a phoneline or two so you can at least make outgoing calls. If your VOIP provider also controls these landlines (WLR) they may be able to do some rerouting of inbound calls - but it'll likely cost (if they can do it at all).

zappb

Thanks Snaga, very helpful post.

I take it a SIP PBX is like a new phone system?

Looks like the upfront cost would be quite expensive, I'll think we'll pass on it.

Many thanks,

malachy47

I'd take that "advice" with a healthy dose of salt. Part of the promise of SIP is that you can make the PBX disappear, i.e. it's your provider rather than you that needs to worry about such things.

I recently completed a travel agency, 7 phone lines, rollover, fax, voicemail, yada yada, and not a PBX in sight.

On this forum, we have consumers attempting to transpose their consumer experience on to business class and vice-versa. Things have moved, so it's rather ridiculous that one would seek the other, much less advise it.

Mr. G

malachy47 wrote: »

I'd take that "advice" with a healthy dose of salt. Part of the promise of SIP is that you can make the PBX disappear, i.e. it's your provider rather than you that needs to worry about such things.

I recently completed a travel agency, 7 phone lines, rollover, fax, voicemail, yada yada, and not a PBX in sight.

On this forum, we have consumers attempting to transpose their consumer experience on to business class and vice-versa. Things have moved, so it's rather ridiculous that one would seek the other, much less advise it.

Also, it is unlikely you will ever have voip fail/down. I remember several times with eircom that the line was done, for at least a day where we couldn't make calls. No broadband etc.

However, with voip you can have the business number divert to a mobile temporarily while you wait for broadband to come back for example. You can do this with eircom also over the phone, but it may not be possible.

HTH

zappb

Malacy what would you recommend? Rough idea of costs?

Thanks

Mr. G

zappb wrote: »

Malacy what would you recommend? Rough idea of costs?

Thanks

You could expect to pay 50-70 euro including mobiles and landlines for an average sme. I recommend you shop around and contact each provider. Pricing would depend if you require a Virtual ipbx etc.

You will save money from using the voip solution, I would see voip as the future phone.

Take a look at blueface.ie,zentelecom.ie,claritytele.ie and goldfish.ie.

HTH.

fbit_colin

Zappb, Do you currently have your calls come via a receptionist phone or are they all direct DID calls? This can make a big difference when choosing to have a hosted pbx or a local one.

If you plan to have a receptionist distributing the calls then you really need the switching to be done locally ie by a onsite pbx. If you dont do the switching locally you will quickly see your bandwidth get eaten just routing one call to another extension. This is also true if your users are on different floors and call each other internally. Basically extension to extension calls go back out via the internet to your voip provider and come back in again.

Your dsl should also ideally be uncontended. This is not the same as uncongested. Vodafone does not provide uncontended broadband. Check out Magnet in your area. As mentioned in a previous post if you plan to have your voice and data using the same broadband then you should have a router or device that can provide QoS.

Another plus for a locally hosted pbx is that some of them can do G729 which compresses the bandwidth used down to 36kbps.

HTH

ChyrillStucker

1. 1. Please give a little more details about meg.
2. 2. You do not need any hardware equipment. the VoIP service provider will install a softphone on your PC through which you can make VoIP calls.
3. 3. Yes, you can keep you old number. You only need to port your existing numbers at the server VoIP services provider.
4. 4. The services are economical and of high quality, while cutting down business telecommunication expenses.
5. 5. Low internet is not a big problem as VoIP service provider use G.729 codec which works fine with low internet. But it will not work in case internet is not there.



You can check with The Real PBX. They are using G.729 codec which makes me enable to use VOIP service in low bandwidth.

Solair

The main thing is that you need good broadband, with low latency and a decent upload speed for multiple user VoIP.

If you have that, you should be able to get away with a remote hosted pbx like Blueface.

Do some research and perhaps test a VoIP phone on your existing broadband before you do anything.

Is cable broadband available at your office?

Some DSL services, particularly if you're far from the exchange or its not using a next generation network backhaul, can produce quite bad VoIP connections.

We tried to use VoIP on a small town DSL line in Leitrim for a few weeks while working away from the main office in Cork and it was absolutely unusable due to latency and congestion issues over eircom's non ngn network. This was an 8mbit line only 0.5 km from the exchange!

Where as in Cork City and West Cork, we've never had a problem with VoIP!

Hence, I'd say test your line and pick the best is you can get!

PlanIT Computing

Solair wrote: »

The main thing is that you need good broadband, with low latency and a decent upload speed for multiple user VoIP.

If you have that, you should be able to get away with a remote hosted pbx like Blueface.

Do some research and perhaps test a VoIP phone on your existing broadband before you do anything.

Is cable broadband available at your office?

Some DSL services, particularly if you're far from the exchange or its not using a next generation network backhaul, can produce quite bad VoIP connections.

We tried to use VoIP on a small town DSL line in Leitrim for a few weeks while working away from the main office in Cork and it was absolutely unusable due to latency and congestion issues over eircom's non ngn network. This was an 8mbit line only 0.5 km from the exchange!

Where as in Cork City and West Cork, we've never had a problem with VoIP!

Hence, I'd say test your line and pick the best is you can get!

Don't forget to setup Quality of Service on each switch / router, especially if using only one internet connection.

Mr. G

PlanIT Computing wrote: »

Don't forget to setup Quality of Service on each switch / router, especially if using only one internet connection.

Yes this is important when it is setup currectly, or else voip is useless in an office that is heavy on the broadband connection.

Solair

If you can only get DSL, and your office is more than just a couple of people, you might even consider getting a second DSL line for the VoIP gear.

Remember, you are still saving by having multiple incoming lines, cheaper calls, and full pabx features without needing a phone system on site. So, it's still really good value even if it does mean a second line.

Also, in some areas the fixed point wireless ISPs can be excellent. I don't mean 3G mobile broadband btw! I mean the likes of Nova Networks or other services that are connected via a small antenna on your roof.

Check out local advice and pay particular attention to the latency !