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Ask HN: What phone systems do you use for your business?

17 points by nixme ↗ HN
- Consumer-style services like Google Voice or Skype?

- Small business hardware solutions like Avaya Partner ACS?

- Enterprisey hardware/software combos like Cisco CallManager?

- Hosted VOIP vs. in-house hardware?

What are your likes, dislikes, pros, cons, etc.?

What would you recommend to a company of about 10-15 employees that has low call volume (about 60-70 calls/day).

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.

24 comments

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tptacek
Onebox. Happy with it. Flailed for awhile with Asterix.
nixme
What phones do you use with it?
tptacek
You don't; it's a hosted PBX with a web interface. We just use POTS phones on standard AT&T circuits, plus our cell phones.
hikari17
We use Onebox as well. Simple to manage, forwards to our cell phones when we're not home. But it's not like we're getting lots of calls yet, so I can't speak to how it scales.
tptacek
It's true, and I missed the part in the post about call volume. Onebox doesn't do much for you if your real problem is getting phones on 20 people's desks to make outbound calls with. But it did totally solve our inbound call problem.
hapless
Asterisk. Most of the SMB-targeted VOIP systems are hellishly awful. Asterisk won't be any easier, or less stupid, but at least you can work around the brain damage.
CyberFonic
Look at www.freeswitch.org - much improved over Asterisk.
sgoraya
We have been using Ringcentral with a total head count of 6 people. It was a breeze to setup (web interface) and you can route calls and extensions to different numbers, etc. I've suggested their service to my friends.

Pros: Easy setup: allocate extensions, routing, voice mail boxes, etc. Cost effective, in other words, cheap!

Cons: None that have caught my attention so far. We needed something quick that would work and give us a more professional identity when we received calls and this has worked for us.

bb_mn
Agreed.

We switched to Ringcentral from Vonage and the difference has been fantastic. Vonage was really unreliable, but the Ringcentral hosted service has been great.

I'll add a couple pros:

* no noticable downtime in over a year

* iPhone app (visual voicemail, call out from the app as if you were sitting at your desk, preview faxes, etc)

* you can have various voicemail or auto-attendant messages for different times - after hours, holidays, etc

* 800-number usage counts as normal minutes - not an upcharge

* easy fax usage - incoming/outgoing

Cons:

* Customer support is outsourced so they do the standard process of running through a checklist of questions. (However, I have only needed to call twice and they did answer my question one time. The second time I figured it out before they responded via email.)

1yellowbrick
Agreed. Very easy to setup. Easy to use. Call quality seems pretty good. Would recommend.
muckster
I've just been through this.

1) Skype for business isn't. They have less-than-zero customer service. One example: http://bit.ly/4fYnwz. They don't have any support option apart from their forums. And Google Voice is limited to windows PCs. No OS X, Linux, mobile or hardware options.

2) Expensive

3) Damned expensive

4) Hosted VOIP has won for us. We use voipfone.co.uk and I can't say enough good things about them or their services. They have every feature imaginable - including things like voice-mail-to-email and 'Press 1 for Sales'. They use SIP protocols so your hardware and software choices are hardly limited. They use astericks so you can get free trunking to other businesses/locations using astericks. Hosting your own astericks server would be very good too, but I suspect for the scale you're considering, voipfone.co.uk or something similar in your part of the world is the cost-effective way forward.

good luck!

pingswept
Talkswitch.

Terrible. Big mistake. Low quality. Bad enough that explaining why would be traumatic enough that I won't do it. I'd still be grinding my teeth hours later.

jseliger
"Avaya Partner ACS?"

This is what we like at Seliger + Associates (see www.seliger.com ). It's a) not overly expensive and b) incredibly reliable. I went through the phone process this summer and came out with Avaya because a) we'd already used it and b) it's really, really reliable.

At some point I'm going to write a publish a blog post on the subject. Drop me a line at seligerj (at) gmail (dot) com if you'd like a link to it.

datums
Take a look at trixbox (asterisk) http://www.trixbox.org/downloads , it's easy to install has all the basic functionality you need. You can also setup the IVR to route calls to specific people. I replaced a windows t1 voice system with this for 25 people, 8 were remotely connecting to it over SIP. If you don't feel like managing your own setup go with a hosted service.
cannedfat
Seconded, sort of. For bigger installations, I stay away from trixbox and just use asterisk and sometimes freepbx on top. To get up and running fast, trixbox is certainly one way to do it. Also look at PBX In a Flash as a potentially better alternative.

Our company is similar to yours in size - 15 people. Call volume is a little higher - 162 calls today according to the logs, and we have very few problems. We've had boxes die in the past so backups are key, but don't cheap out on the hardware even though you can. We use both TDM cards and SIP providers and both work well.

I should say this is only viable if someone is going to take the time to learn the basics of the system, install it, and support it. But you do not need a huge amount of experience to get a full featured system up and running.

We have all the features we need or want, plus many options on physical phones. Mostly we use Aastra but have used and tested Polycom, Grandstream, Cisco, and a few others.

The best part is the freedom - add as many extensions, mailboxes, etc. to the system as you need. Have it email your messages, page you, forward to a custom application. And we are opening a branch office so we will be trunking between them to reduce costs on long distance, all basically out of the box.

CyberFonic
I used to maintain PABXs for small businesses. Pre-VoIP PABXs are expensive, inflexible and expansion often traumatic. Enterprisey VoIP systems from major vendors are over-priced and they get you on the extras. I recommend hosted VoIP for those who don't want to administer their own phone system and in-house VoIP for those who want a bit more control. FreeSwitch is very good solution as well. Don't get any POTS lines, use the money you save to get a fatter IP pipe into your office. Most VoIP handsets are fine, I don't think CISCO being worth the premium.
nixme
I'd like to talk to you more about your experience maintaining phone systems, but your contact info isn't in your profile :) Mind dropping me an email? nixme at stillhope dotcom. Thanks!
cpr
What about for a mostly Mac-based small business?

RingCentral looks good, but seems heavily Windows-centric.

bb_mn
I was a bit worried about this as well, but it has been fine for my Mac-based business. The iPhone app is basic, but extremely helpful as far as what it does.

There are some Mac-specific answers in the knowledge-base and the forums, but really I mostly interact with RingCentral via a browser (not a problem on Safari or Firefox), the iPhone app or the VOIP handset itself.

If you have specific questions, I would be happy to see if I can do whatever you're concerned you'll not be able to do and let you know.

edit: I don't really use the SoftPhone or fax from within applications. Some of the finer details of this stuff may end up being PC-only.

chrismoos
I use Asterisk, managed via FreePBX. It works pretty well if you don't have that many users. I use a SIP trunking service with a DID. Siphon (SIP client) for my iPhone, Telephone on OS X, and also forwarding to my normal cell.

I've heard really good things about Shoretel, but I know its very expensive.