On-Premises soft PBX
-
FreePBX or 3CX are the PBX, the "phone server" if you will. If you want to make calls on the PSTN (the public switched telephone network) then you need a connection to it. That's what a purchased SIP trunk is for. Vendors like Skyetel (@Skyetel ), VoicePulse, voip.ms, Twilio, Sangoma (on the FreePBX site) all offer these. Only Skyetel is active in the community here.
-
Your SIP trunk to the PSTN is like your ISP providing Internet. The PBX itself handles your "LAN", your private network. But the SIP trunk provider allows you to connect to other people outside of your organization. So technically, nothing is needed beyond the PBX, but you can only call people that you give extensions to. That can be useful, but isn't what most people expect when building a phone system.
-
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
Only Skyetel is active in the community here.
They are no more active than the FreePBX dev that pops in occasionally.
Just more recently active.
-
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
We installed and ran a couple of options to see what would work best for us and for our needs 3CX was the clear winner.
We are running the debian version of 3CX on xenserver. It has worked very well.
What did you test against? Was FreePBX one of the options?
There are loads of things worse than 3CX, like Mitel or Cisco that we've found. No question there.
Of course we tried freepbx.
Okay, so we can look at 3CX or FreePBX as two options.
What else do we need to make this work?
I jumped on FreePBX's site for a boo and there's something there about a SIP Trunk?
They make their money trying to sell you things. FreePBX is totally free and can use any SIP trunk you want. But you are welcome to buy SIP trunks from them directly, if you so desire.
That's the catch. I'm not sure what is needed and from where given our location in Canada.
-
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
We installed and ran a couple of options to see what would work best for us and for our needs 3CX was the clear winner.
We are running the debian version of 3CX on xenserver. It has worked very well.
What did you test against? Was FreePBX one of the options?
There are loads of things worse than 3CX, like Mitel or Cisco that we've found. No question there.
Of course we tried freepbx.
Okay, so we can look at 3CX or FreePBX as two options.
What else do we need to make this work?
I jumped on FreePBX's site for a boo and there's something there about a SIP Trunk?
They make their money trying to sell you things. FreePBX is totally free and can use any SIP trunk you want. But you are welcome to buy SIP trunks from them directly, if you so desire.
That's the catch. I'm not sure what is needed and from where given our location in Canada.
Do you have Internet access?
-
Twilio does SIP trunking in Canada as does voip.ms.
-
@coliver said in On-Premises soft PBX:
Twilio does SIP trunking in Canada as does voip.ms.
VoIP.ms is a Canadian based company in fact.
-
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
We installed and ran a couple of options to see what would work best for us and for our needs 3CX was the clear winner.
We are running the debian version of 3CX on xenserver. It has worked very well.
What did you test against? Was FreePBX one of the options?
There are loads of things worse than 3CX, like Mitel or Cisco that we've found. No question there.
Of course we tried freepbx.
Okay, so we can look at 3CX or FreePBX as two options.
What else do we need to make this work?
I jumped on FreePBX's site for a boo and there's something there about a SIP Trunk?
They make their money trying to sell you things. FreePBX is totally free and can use any SIP trunk you want. But you are welcome to buy SIP trunks from them directly, if you so desire.
That's the catch. I'm not sure what is needed and from where given our location in Canada.
What you need with any PBX is a connection to the PSTN (public switched telephone network). This connection is called a trunk.
Old school, your trunk was a POTS line or 3. Or it was a voice T1 (PRI).
Today it is SIP.
-
What you can do is pick a solution to test.
Spin it up.
Connect 2 desk phones (or soft phones or apps).
Make calls to each other.
Then buy a DID (phone number) from a SIP provider for $1.
Setup a trunk in the PBX with the SIP provider.
Setup inbound routing rules.
Test calling in.
Setup outbound routing rules.
Test calling out. -
Once you have a working system that you like, you set it up again cleanly.
Connect your SIP trunk.
Buy phones for all users.
Schedule a go live for the users.
On that go live forward your main numbers to your new DID.
Then you can port your old numbers to your SIP provider. -
@JaredBusch said in On-Premises soft PBX:
Once you have a working system that you like, you set it up again cleanly.
Connect your SIP trunk.
Buy phones for all users.
Schedule a go live for the users.
On that go live forward your main numbers to your new DID.
Then you can port your old numbers to your SIP provider.Heh. Sounds like fun.
Okay, here's the deal: We have one POTS number as mentioned and one toll free 888 number resident with Tagline.CC that we'd like to port over as well.
I'm really not interested in delving into this stuff on my own as I have a pile of cluster lab work that is revenue focused on the To Do List.
Folks who do this stuff for a living, please DM me a cost and a monthly cost if need-be along with a brief description of what's needed. I'll touch base with the current phone provider to see if we're bound into a contract or not. I don't think so as I don't remember signing something but the grey matter's not so reliable as of late.
Thanks folks!
-
@PhlipElder ok it's in your chat window. feel free to get back whenever it hits the top of your pile.
-
Not that this adds anything to this thread. We've been using FreePBX for 6 years now. I wouldn't use anything else at this point. Support is top notch. Everything works and I can figure things out if needed. I built our system with little help from FreePBX at the time but now that Sangoma has taken over it just gets better and better.
-
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@PhlipElder said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@Pete-S said in On-Premises soft PBX:
We installed and ran a couple of options to see what would work best for us and for our needs 3CX was the clear winner.
We are running the debian version of 3CX on xenserver. It has worked very well.
What did you test against? Was FreePBX one of the options?
There are loads of things worse than 3CX, like Mitel or Cisco that we've found. No question there.
Of course we tried freepbx.
Okay, so we can look at 3CX or FreePBX as two options.
What else do we need to make this work?
I jumped on FreePBX's site for a boo and there's something there about a SIP Trunk?
They make their money trying to sell you things. FreePBX is totally free and can use any SIP trunk you want. But you are welcome to buy SIP trunks from them directly, if you so desire.
That's the catch. I'm not sure what is needed and from where given our location in Canada.
Being in Canada doesn't really change much. You just need vendors that support Canada. I know that voip.ms does. You don't need anything that they sell.
-
@Skyetel does US and Canada, as well.
-
I was looking at the Sangoma IP phones after my curiosity was piqued for FreePBX. When it says that it supports, say, 3 SIP accounts. What exactly is that; is that like an extension or what?
-
@wrx7m said in On-Premises soft PBX:
I was looking at the Sangoma IP phones after my curiosity was piqued for FreePBX. When it says that it supports, say, 3 SIP accounts. What exactly is that; is that like an extension or what?
That means you can register 3 distinct extensions on it. Same PBX or different, etc.
I have 4 different extensions on my phone now from different clients.
I rarely ever use them, mostly if a problem is reported, I can verify.
-
@JaredBusch Same here, we rarely use more than one, and when we do it is almost always because we are a phone consultancy and not because it is practical on its own. I have no customers using anything like that.
-
@wrx7m said in On-Premises soft PBX:
I was looking at the Sangoma IP phones after my curiosity was piqued for FreePBX.
I don't like them. I got a s500 for attending a seminar in person. It works fine at a basic level, but the reliance on the phone apps for everything just makes doing things slow.
So that makes it not worth the premium IMO. The ability to freely use the commercial EPM is not worth it.
EPM is not that expensive anyway.
-
@JaredBusch said in On-Premises soft PBX:
@wrx7m said in On-Premises soft PBX:
I was looking at the Sangoma IP phones after my curiosity was piqued for FreePBX.
I don't like them. I got a s500 for attending a seminar in person. It works fine at a basic level, but the reliance on the phone apps for everything just makes doing things slow.
So that makes it not worth the premium IMO. The ability to freely use the commercial EPM is not worth it.
EPM is not that expensive anyway.
My dad uses one (he is retired from NTG) and it works fine, I use it when I take over his office. But I prefer my Yealinks for sure.
