Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...
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Oh I have a used Sangoma Vega 50 I can sell you. It was something bought when a Grandstream GXW4108 did not work at another client. Turned out to be a problem with Hyper-V and I ate the cost when we put the Grandstram in after finding the problem..
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I admit the more I dig in to this, the more confused I am.
I'm learning a bunch of the acronyms and trying to reason about what is a new tech and what is old tech, ITSP, PSTN, POTS, SBC, TDM, DIDs, trunks, SIP trunks, bridges. Software tools versus appliances, and what providers like voip.ms or 1-voip do.
Things easily get confusing. On one website they are comparing FreePBX to Voip.ms. But on another website a person is asking how to configure FreePBX with voip.ms as the provider. What? Are they competitors or does one provide a service and the other uses it? If I had a voip.ms account would I need FreePBX or not?
I get it that if we keep our POTS lines, then we need essentially a bridge device to convert our internal phone network to VOIP. But of course this isn't "true" VOIP since it's only internal and converts to POTS on the way out, so what good is that? Are the benefits of VOIP in this case based entirely on the features of the phones then?
My original goal is basically to allow for multiple switchable voicemail greetings. So with the VOIP internal, plus bridge appliance and POTS service, who would be controlling voicemail and inboxes? Is that what FreePBX does? Would I need the appliance AND FreePBX AND the phones and this would get the voicemail (and other) features of VOIP even if the signal still goes out over POTS? I assume FreePBX alone doesn't actually do anything, it must connect somehow to some kind of phone service.
I'm reading as much as I can and there are a few sparse diagrams here and there but I think I need some more visual tools to understand how all this fits together. Which device controls what, which is a provider and which is a bridge and what are the requirements of a basic VOIP setup? Some network diagrams of a bunch of different kinds of arrangements or topologies would be nice.
You're all saying don't bother talking to Avaya, they'll just try to sell me appliances. But then you're linking me to buying appliances anyway from Sangoma or Grandstream. Is Avaya not in this market? I really don't know who the players are, not that it matters, the prices of Sangoma and Grandstream are just fine by me.
I just need to keep studying a little, it's hard for me to work out an issue without understanding it and what each piece is responsible for. Visual learning would be good at this point cause everything else turns to acronym soup and hypotheticals.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Things easily get confusing. On one website they are comparing FreePBX to Voip.ms. But on another website a person is asking how to configure FreePBX with voip.ms as the provider. What? Are they competitors or does one provide a service and the other uses it? If I had a voip.ms account would I need FreePBX or not?
voip.ms is both. They sell SIP trunks that you can connect to FreePBX, they also can act as a PBX for very small setups (possibly larger ones also, but the features will be lacking).
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
I get it that if we keep our POTS lines, then we need essentially a bridge device to convert our internal phone network to VOIP. But of course this isn't "true" VOIP since it's only internal and converts to POTS on the way out, so what good is that?
What's true VOIP? Inside your network if everything is using VOIP, then you have VOIP internally. The connection to the PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network - aka normal telephone service) is whatever you want it to be. In your listed case it would be POTS lines, but it could be SIP trunks or PRI, etc.
One of the major advantages of SIP trunks (besides lower cost) is portability in most cases. In the case of purchasing SIP trunks from voip.ms is you can use the SIP trunks pretty much anywhere. You're building burns down, and you lost your PBX, no problem, make a new one and connect it from home/another office/a hosted location. You can't easily/quickly do that with POTS and PRI connections, those normally days days/weeks/months to get from the carrier.
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Are the benefits of VOIP in this case based entirely on the features of the phones then?
What benefits are you talking about? If you're talking about the cost benefit, well, the cost of less expensive phones and no licensing on the PBX side, you would gain those. But if you're talking about the SIP trunk portability and lower costs of SIP trunks, well obviously, you're using POTS, so you wouldn't get those advantages.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
My original goal is basically to allow for multiple switchable voicemail greetings.
This is a weird goal - are you sure it's voicemail greetings you want to change? I though from the postings it looked like the incoming announcement is what you wanted to change.
Voicemail notices are specifically for whatever mailbox a user ends up in.. is that where you really want a simple change?Can you give us an example of your full end goal?
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
So with the VOIP internal, plus bridge appliance and POTS service, who would be controlling voicemail and inboxes? Is that what FreePBX does?
Yes FreePBX would control voicemail boxes in this case.
Would I need the appliance AND FreePBX AND the phones and this would get the voicemail (and other) features of VOIP even if the signal still goes out over POTS? I assume FreePBX alone doesn't actually do anything, it must connect somehow to some kind of phone service.
If by appliance you mean an ATA convertor (the box that converts the POTS lines into SIP trunks that talk to FreePBX, then yes you need the appliance.
FreePBX talks to your current phone service through the ATA convertor to your POTS lines.
You'll need SIP phones or ATA convertors for analog phones to talk to FreePBX - new phones is generally easier. If you have a digital phone system, it's likely that wouldn't easily connect to a FreePBX system, if at all. -
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Would I need the appliance AND FreePBX AND the phones and this would get the voicemail (and other) features of VOIP even if the signal still goes out over POTS?
I think you're trying to think FreePBX is more than it really is. Or that VOIP is more than it is. Let's not think of it as something different than what you have today other than in the way it communicates. In other words, two people who speak English understand each other just like two people who speak Spanish understand each other. They both end up in the same place, communication. VOIP when boiled down is the same. It's using IP to communicate instead of whatever protocol the phone companies use. But just like the two groups of people talking two different language can use an interpreter to communicate between the groups, the same can happen between the old phone system and the VOIP phone system. In this case that interpreter is the ATA box.
So once the call comes in on the POTS line, the ATA converts the call into SIP which the FreePBX than handles just like any old school PBX (more or less) and voicemail, auto attendants, huntgroups, etc all work, again more or less, like they do in your old PBX.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
I'm reading as much as I can and there are a few sparse diagrams here and there but I think I need some more visual tools to understand how all this fits together. Which device controls what, which is a provider and which is a bridge and what are the requirements of a basic VOIP setup? Some network diagrams of a bunch of different kinds of arrangements or topologies would be nice.
If I have time later, I might make up one or two.
but hopefully my previous post will help explain how these different parts can work together. -
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
You're all saying don't bother talking to Avaya, they'll just try to sell me appliances. But then you're linking me to buying appliances anyway from Sangoma or Grandstream. Is Avaya not in this market? I really don't know who the players are, not that it matters, the prices of Sangoma and Grandstream are just fine by me.
The reason not to buy Avaya is because they are bankrupt and we have no idea how much longer they will be around. There is no point buying a piece of tech that has an uncertain future, when the future of the competition is seemingly more stable.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
I just need to keep studying a little, it's hard for me to work out an issue without understanding it and what each piece is responsible for. Visual learning would be good at this point cause everything else turns to acronym soup and hypotheticals.
Yeah the acronym soup can be a killer.
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@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
My original goal is basically to allow for multiple switchable voicemail greetings.
This is a weird goal - are you sure it's voicemail greetings you want to change? I though from the postings it looked like the incoming announcement is what you wanted to change.
Voicemail notices are specifically for whatever mailbox a user ends up in.. is that where you really want a simple change?Can you give us an example of your full end goal?
Just think "25 year old system" and it makes sense.
We have a few phone numbers that the Avaya system just rolls over if line 1 is busy it rings on line 2 etc. If no one answers, just like a cell phone, you get a voicemail message, beeeeep, then someone leaves a message. Yes, we are using this simple voicemail greeting beep thing for people to leave messages for the business. There is no auto-attendant, there is no "press 1 for jane, press 3 for tech services" stuff.
So our system has ONE greeting, "hello, you've reached Troglodyte Systems Inc, we're avoiding calls right now, please leave a message and we'll paste a sticky note of it somewhere in the office that nobody will respond to, maybe. beeeep".
But the boss wants to switch to other greetings like one for the evening "hello, we went out to lunch but decided not to work any more, so we consider this after hours now. leave a message!"
Or a holiday greeting "you are calling within 3 weeks of a government sanctioned holiday, therefore we are very busy and don't want to talk to you, leave a message and our receptionist will delete it in the morning, thanks!"
All we want to do is pick a custom greeting. But now we have to literally record a new one every time we want to change it.
If I go through all the trouble of converting the whole office to VOIP, at least internally, we must have this feature at the least.
Other features we use, I would consider just as normal to have on a VOIP phone. Intercom ability, call hold, 3 way call, individual voicemail, shortcut buttons, speakerphone, caller ID, call history, etc.
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OK - Now we're getting somewhere. More to come.
You can probably fix this in your current system with an auto attendant setup and some time variables.
I.e. call rings - no answer - look at time if
time x = normal voicemail
time y = after hours voicemailHolidays are a bit different, some systems allows you to set a start stop for how to handle calls with times and dates, others require you to set it manually.
It's likely your current phone system can already do this.
A quick and dirty search for your phone system turned up this thread. It appears that programming that switch requires using a serial port and the software to connect to the PBX to make the updates. If you don't have these things, you'll need to hire an Avaya PBX support company to come do them for you.Your other option is to dump that system and move to FreePBX.
It can do what you want, though the holiday thing is still something I'm not sure if it would require manual intervention or not - that's a @JaredBusch question. -
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Other features we use, I would consider just as normal to have on a VOIP phone. Intercom ability, call hold, 3 way call, individual voicemail, shortcut buttons, speakerphone, caller ID, call history, etc.
Intercom ability, - yep
call hold, - yep
3 way call, (conference calling) - yep
individual voicemail, - yep
shortcut buttons, - what is this?
speakerphone, - depends on phone, but yeah - yep
caller ID, - yep
call history, - @JaredBusch should know this one. -
@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
shortcut buttons, - what is this?
I'm guessing quick dial or shortcuts to things like voicemail or a directory?
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@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
call history
Yes, this is built into pretty much every phone I've played with on the VoIP side. You can also access it from the PBX if you have the user sections active.
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@coliver said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
shortcut buttons, - what is this?
I'm guessing quick dial or shortcuts to things like voicemail or a directory?
Doh - in my rush to reply I read it as shortcut balloons.
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
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@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
OK - Now we're getting somewhere. More to come.
You can probably fix this in your current system with an auto attendant setup and some time variables.
I.e. call rings - no answer - look at time if
time x = normal voicemail
time y = after hours voicemailHolidays are a bit different, some systems allows you to set a start stop for how to handle calls with times and dates, others require you to set it manually.
It's likely your current phone system can already do this.
A quick and dirty search for your phone system turned up this thread. It appears that programming that switch requires using a serial port and the software to connect to the PBX to make the updates. If you don't have these things, you'll need to hire an Avaya PBX support company to come do them for you.Your other option is to dump that system and move to FreePBX.
It can do what you want, though the holiday thing is still something I'm not sure if it would require manual intervention or not - that's a @JaredBusch question.@guyinpv For this you want multiple recordings and then depending on who will make the change you can set it up a number of ways.
In this example, my client had two recordings for their IVR. A day version and a night version.
Then a holiday came along and they wanted it to have it say we are closed for the holiday and will reopen on Tuesday in the middle of the night IVR, so that became a third recording.
Now when they want to change it they simply let me know and I update the actual IVR to use the appropriate recording.
You could also setup various announcements or call flow controls or IVR's. basically anyway you want to make this change.
You could even have multiple day night controls target the next one and have many buttons on the recption phone to set the control you want..
It just comes down to call flow. -
Are we using IVR and voicemail greetings the same way?
Isn't IVR the interactive thing with menus and "press 1 for this" etc?
Nothing interactive about standard voicemail.
Does FreePBX have separate voicemail vs. IVR or is it all one in the same?
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Are we using IVR and voicemail greetings the same way?
Isn't IVR the interactive thing with menus and "press 1 for this" etc?
it doesn't have to have a prompt - it can simply do an action.
Nothing interactive about standard voicemail.
and by the same nature, voicemail can have prompts - press one to send with standard urgency, 9 for high urgency, 0 for operator, etc.
Does FreePBX have separate voicemail vs. IVR or is it all one in the same?
They are each either own function - but a nature of Voicemail is user-centric - meaning, it's expected that the user will manage it 99.9% of the time. I.e. you want to change voice greatings, you the user do that. Some systems do allow for two different recordings - in office, out of office. Personally, I've never seen one offer more than two, but there's nothing really stopping someone from making such a system.
