RingCentral and Vonage
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@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Who else would you recommend we look into at our level?
Well the worst I've ever dealt with is Weave. Avoid them like the plague. RC is rock solid, just expensive as hell and not very business-focused. SpectrumVOIP seems like a joke, small town and no support but high prices.
Since we do business phones ourselves, we tend to see vendors with problems (like they can't make phone calls actually work), vendors that are expensive (like RC), or vendors that don't provide a business experience. Basically customers moving to business phones for a reason.
So we never really see the competitors that are good. Bundy Associates is the only competitor we ever recommend because we like their business model.
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@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Who else would you recommend we look into at our level?
Well the worst I've ever dealt with is Weave. Avoid them like the plague. RC is rock solid, just expensive as hell and not very business-focused. SpectrumVOIP seems like a joke, small town and no support but high prices.
Since we do business phones ourselves, we tend to see vendors with problems (like they can't make phone calls actually work), vendors that are expensive (like RC), or vendors that don't provide a business experience. Basically customers moving to business phones for a reason.
So we never really see the competitors that are good. Bundy Associates is the only competitor we ever recommend because we like their business model.
Don't forget Scott's own company - NTG, they also sell this service, if you didn't pick that up from his comments.
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@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
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@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
@360col Are you going to be using only softphones? Because if anyone has a desk phone, I can't even imagine trying to enter a good domain password using a handset.
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@travisdh1 said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
@360col Are you going to be using only softphones? Because if anyone has a desk phone, I can't even imagine trying to enter a good domain password using a handset.
Yealink, it's buried in his description.
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@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
seems expensive (25 cents per minutes calls to mobile (unless on most expensive plan)! come on, any random provider charges 12 cents here..)
Just checked our standard and it's $0.08 max and $.025 on some calls. That's not a deal, just full price.
You comparing pricing for the appropriate countries? He specifically asked for Australia and New Zealand.
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@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
seems expensive (25 cents per minutes calls to mobile (unless on most expensive plan)! come on, any random provider charges 12 cents here..)
Just checked our standard and it's $0.08 max and $.025 on some calls. That's not a deal, just full price.
You comparing pricing for the appropriate countries? He specifically asked for Australia and New Zealand.
Yes, that was Australia. Didn't look up NZ. US would be far lower. The highest price I saw in Australia was actually lower than that, I rounded up because it was so close.
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NZ is almost universally $.0425
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@travisdh1 said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
@360col Are you going to be using only softphones? Because if anyone has a desk phone, I can't even imagine trying to enter a good domain password using a handset.
why? You can use the web interface.
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@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@travisdh1 said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
@360col Are you going to be using only softphones? Because if anyone has a desk phone, I can't even imagine trying to enter a good domain password using a handset.
why? You can use the web interface.
Or via the End Point Manager.
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Thanks for all the replies.
The FreePBX instant are provided & "managed" by a telco we use and we are potentially moving away from them so that won't stay. We do not currently have access to End Point Manager due to its being a managed FreePBX platform.
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
I'm just arming myself with as much info as I can as I won't be the one making the call on this. Other non technical factors has also come into play so looks like we are going to trial RingCentral.
We are Australian based so Scott's company won't fit into the equation. I also now found out that another of our little subsidiary have been using RingCentral so that gave them some bonus points just because.
I'll report back here if we do go with RingCentral and how things goes.
BTW: It turns out that we don't actually need SSO for any technical reasons at present and it was just thrown in there just because we are on the train to auth everything with Azure AD.
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@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
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@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
We are Australian based so Scott's company won't fit into the equation.
Why? We service Australia just the same as RingCentral. Neither of us are located there, both service there without a problem.
How did we get ruled out, but not RingCentral?
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@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
BTW: It turns out that we don't actually need SSO for any technical reasons at present and it was just thrown in there just because we are on the train to auth everything with Azure AD.
Azure AD and AD are unrelated. You listed AD, lots and lots of things talk to AD that can't talk to Azure AD, and a few the reverse.
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What do you anticipate your monthly cost to be with RC?
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Ring central requires you to buy or lease the phones. They are not included in the advertised price. Since you have Yealinks, you should be fine.
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
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@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
I wonder if that remains true in Australia where the underlying telephony costs are so much higher.
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@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
I've kinda wondered that briefly from time to time.... I can't really imagine what a person wants to unify with their phone system - short of getting voicemails sent to email, and possibly counting fax to email as part of UC as well. Personally I don't see video chat in the phone arena, it's it's own thing - though obviously doesn't need to be.
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@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
How did we get ruled out, but not RingCentral?
I was asked to review the Ringcentral quote and give my opinion. It seems it has been very much decided to trial RingCentral before it got to me (without me realizing). I did suggest some providers to look at but it doesn't seem like those will be entertained so I gave my 2 cents and left it at that for now.
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
UC is a scam,...
Yeah I know. Higher up are drinking the cool aid with the whole 'presence' thing. Office365 integrated calling (via Telstra) were looked at and discarded due to cost and wasn't going to work for our use case.
Let not even go into the 'magic quadrant' crap! (hint it was brought up).
Feel free to continue the discussions. However my original purpose is concluded. Aka I wouldn't have bothered had I known what I know now of the 'requirements'. Dam its frustrating at times trying to do your best and get hampered by arbitrary things.
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@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Ring central requires you to buy or lease the phones. They are not included in the advertised price. Since you have Yealinks, you should be fine.
Yes I know. I have put in my 2 cents about recommending we keep using Yealinks from a performance & price angle. We currently use the T46S as our standard.
