Phone system
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Anyone familiar with the Switchvox company and their experience with them? How do they compare with Ring Central or
VoIP.ms? -
@jmoore said in Phone system:
Switchvox
apparently offers hosted freepbx, so I doubt anyone here would use them when whoever would use them could just host freepbx themselves.
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@dustinb3403 ok thanks, that makes sense. I asked the person doing the demo and she did not know about the software. I'll give my recommendation to host since that will be a little cheaper. My school is still going around with this /sigh. Thanks for your input Dustin
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@jmoore don't take my opinion as being the only opinion that matters, it certainly doesn't. But from the preliminary search that I performed, there didn't seem to be a huge reason to need to go to a third party to do something that can be done for substantially less in-house.
@JaredBusch sets up systems like these all the time and I can almost guarantee the price is lower than whatever Switchvox charges.
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@dustinb3403 I agree with you totally. I asked what pbx their software is based on and she said Linux centos......
So you can see why I'm suspicious here. I also asked what brand phones they use and they are Digium branded and won't work with other sip phones. Sorry but I highly doubtful that as well.
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SwitchVox has nothing to do with FreePBX.
The company that sponsors Asterisk itself is Digium.
Digium's commercial product is SwitchVox.
I have not looked at their product in a few years. I have no idea on its quality.
But because it is pure Asterisk, it works with everything that used standard SIP protocols.
Edit: tag the thread.
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@jmoore said in Phone system:
I also asked what brand phones they use and they are Digium branded and won't work with other sip phones. Sorry but I highly doubtful that as well.
Actually this one is very logical. Supporting a bazillion phone models is hard. This is why the old open source Endpoint Manager application for FreePBX died.
Also, you were likely talking to sales. WTF else would you expect?
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Right on their website it says it works with anything.
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I don't think my school wants to host their pbx software. So for around 300 users who is generally the top provider these days?
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@jmoore especially for 300 users, you’ll better go with hosted PBX. Any internal call will use no WAN bandwidth, simple provisioning, much less bandwidth required anyway, lower costs.
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@jmoore said in Phone system:
I don't think my school wants to host their pbx software. So for around 300 users who is generally the top provider these days?
There is nothing bad about loading up a freepbx instance on a premise virtual server in your situation. Could still just as easily work from the cloud as @EddieJennings has done.
Switchvox was pretty amazing 10 years ago, way ahead of its time. It looked like Google made a fancy new phone system. Doesnt relate to FreePBX though, they have their own platform and its pretty costly to license and most of the features and benefits are for sales organizations.
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@bigbear Yeah I was thinking it would probably save a lot of money for us to not use a hosted solution. The phone lady says we pay around 20k a year for our legacy cisco system. Even a cloud setup like Eddie does should be doable for us.
Thanks for the info about SwitchVox. Someone else told me that their demo doesnt usually reflect what they are selling. As in, you have to buy a lot more to get what the demo shows. So who knows. I was asked to help again as they did not make a decision last time either.
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@jmoore said in Phone system:
@bigbear Yeah I was thinking it would probably save a lot of money for us to not use a hosted solution. The phone lady says we pay around 20k a year for our legacy cisco system. Even a cloud setup like Eddie does should be doable for us.
Thanks for the info about SwitchVox. Someone else told me that their demo doesnt usually reflect what they are selling. As in, you have to buy a lot more to get what the demo shows. So who knows. I was asked to help again as they did not make a decision last time either.
I would expect $4,000 price tag for a small business with 10 people, plus the phones... so not sure how they would approach a school system but certainly would be a waste of money.
And I agree a paid hosted solution for a school system would likely be a waste of money mostly because of the per-extension pricing.
FreePBX is a PITA to update IMO, I would get a guy like @JaredBusch on retainer to handle it monthly whether on premise or in the cloud. Even in the cloud I bet a school would have very little traffic. You would be in control but its handy to have someone who can jump in with a quick fix where you might spend days trying to figure something out.
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@jmoore said in Phone system:
Anyone familiar with the Switchvox company and their experience with them? How do they compare with Ring Central or
VoIP.ms?Well RingCentral and voip.ms are very different. One is a hosted per user phones, the other is a trunk provider. At least as their focus. Rather different companies. Switchvox is a third kind of company, they make PBXs. So three totally different animals.
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@jmoore said in Phone system:
@dustinb3403 ok thanks, that makes sense. I asked the person doing the demo and she did not know about the software. I'll give my recommendation to host since that will be a little cheaper. My school is still going around with this /sigh. Thanks for your input Dustin
If you need a local area supplier....
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I agree with others here - Hire JB's company to set this up and manage it for you.
It can be on prem or cloud based.
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@scottalanmiller said in Phone system:
@jmoore said in Phone system:
@dustinb3403 ok thanks, that makes sense. I asked the person doing the demo and she did not know about the software. I'll give my recommendation to host since that will be a little cheaper. My school is still going around with this /sigh. Thanks for your input Dustin
If you need a local area supplier....
Scott - who's doing your phone (VOIP like FreePBX) support these days?
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@jmoore you can get hosted service not paid per line also.
Really, there are a ton of options. You need to have consultant knowledgeable in telephony to help you, or you need to learn telephony yourself. Which ever is more effective for you.
You have these rough choices
Hosted service by line
Hosted service by usage
Hosted PBX - managed or self ran
Local PBX - managed or self ranThere are more details, but that is the high level view.
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@dashrender Yeah I keep making suggestions. I think we would be in a lot better shape financially and feature wise if we used one of you all. I'm not sure where the hold up is with our phone lady and her boss. Hopefully we will get somewhere soon on this.
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@jaredbusch Thanks Jared. I am in process of learning telephony myself because I never want to quit learning. However its not my position so I am just asked for suggestions by my management. I have suggested your company as well as Scott's so they would have options. I don't know if the lady in charge contacted you all or what the results were. I am certainly not an expert as I have only done a couple small jobs, that is why I keep telling her to contact one of you all.
