[TriLUG] VOIP Implementation

[jerry]

Hello Douglas

I hope all is going well. I am sure you are being inundated with offers 
from phone systems suppliers.

Has anyone suggested a hosted solution? With a hosted solution, your PBX 
is off site and maintained
by a company for a monthly fee. The PBX is open source (Asterisk) and 
runs in an open source OS, linux.
The linux distribution is Centos which is a near clone of Redhat 
Enterprise Linux,  known for its reliability.

All VOIP solutions are subject to local power outages. However, short of 
a major catastrophe, your PBX will be available. Hosted solutions run in 
"server farms" that are highly protected against power outages, hardware
breakdowns, and other problems. The same level of protection would be 
prohibitively expensive if provided locally.

It is usually recommended that a VOIP installation maintain at least one 
land line for emergencies. Should there be
a local power outage and your internet connection is lost  and your land 
line remains active(a common occurrence)
your calls can be automatically rerouted to your land line. Your hosted 
PBX will, almost certainly, continue to
function. You will retain phone access albeit on a limited scale.

I believe a hosted solution offers a lower risk of loss of service than 
an on-site system.

There are a number of companies that offer this service. There is one 
company that I favor because, as I said,
it is all open source. In addition, the charges are not based on the 
number of extensions. The charges are
based on the number of simultaneous calls and outside phone numbers you 
need. If you have 50 extensions,
but these are not used simultaneously, you will pay much less than if 
you were charged based on the number
of extensions.

Yes, if you have 50 or more employees and they spend most of their time 
on the phone, this won't help you.
Still, it might be worth getting a quote to see how it compares with 
other systems.

I don't think I need to point out that, with a hosted system, you need 
not invest as much up front. You
pay a monthly fee and leave all other responsibilities to the provider.  
You can save on your monthly fee also
because you have the choice of self managing your system, hiring a local 
company to manage the system,
or paying the provider to manage the system.

With the company I have in mind, you are not locked in to a contract. If 
you don't like the service (which
I think you will) you simply stop paying and either move to another 
provider or bring the system in house.

Please let me know if you wish to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Jerry Wilson
Chapel Hill NC
919.942..0931






On 10/02/2009 09:09 PM, Douglas Ward wrote:
> The North Carolina Methodist Conference (http://www.nccumc.org) is building
> a new facility in Garner.  The scheduled completion date is May 2010.  We
> are looking for a vendor that can implement an open source VOIP solution for
> an approximately 50 extension phone system.  Please contact me directly if
> you (or someone you know) can do this work.   My contact information
> follows:
> Douglas Ward
> IT Director
> NC Methodist Conference
> (919) 832-9560 x227
> dward at nccumc.org
>
> Please mention that you heard about this via the TriLUG list.  I have gotten
> so many calls from vendors during this process that you might get buried in
> the noise.  Thanks!
> --
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>