Small company migrating to home-based business: telephony suggestions?

There is a small company that I have been working with for a few years now on the side. The owners have decided they want to close their office in town, sell the building, and work from their homes - the principals of the business would work from one home and one other person working from another home. However, they want it to be transparent to the outside world that they are working at home... they're going with that whole "virtual office" concept where you can rent a street address and conference room space, and they're going to move their SBS server to the house with them. They're going to go with a business-class cable service or better and run email from their home, and VPN capability will be set up so the third person can connect to the network with a VPN client.

The part in which I have absolutely no experience is their telephony needs. They are currently leasing their telephone and data from a local service provider and want to keep four of their phone numbers when they move their business. I'm assuming if they are using the same provider that it should be possible... they said they looked into it. Anyway, they are looking for a phone solution with the following capabilities:

Can support the four lines they need
Dial an extension to reach someone
Ability for one of the people to work based out another home, but have full use of the phone system from their desk... can this be done without a persistent point to point connection between the houses?
Optionally, the ability to answer calls when they at the beach and work from there (like a magicjack or something like that)

I'm not necessarily looking for a specific product or brand (though if you know of something, please), just maybe some guidance on the technology that's out there to point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Blargoe

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Comments

Daniel333

Fonality is a good hosted solution otherwise snag a UC500 from Cisco and you can meet those needs. Both options are kinda pricy though. You might want to contact their ISP and see if those offer a small business package.

blargoe

Thanks, that gives me a couple of avenues to explore. I like the hosted PBX concept.

Eventually, I hope to have them on Hosted Exchange, migrate their files to Sharepoint Online, migrate their company's production application to a hosted service that their vendor provides, and have the hosted PBX, that would give me an exit plan to get them out of my hair...

dynamik

You might want to check out MailStreet, as they offer all three of those. The client I have is only using their hosted Exchange though, so I'm not sure about the quality and features of their voice offering.

MailStreet Exchange Hosting, Email Outsourcing using Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server,Outsource Corporate Email

darkerosxx

blargoe wrote: »

Can support the four lines they need
Dial an extension to reach someone
Ability for one of the people to work based out another home, but have full use of the phone system from their desk... can this be done without a persistent point to point connection between the houses?
Optionally, the ability to answer calls when they at the beach and work from there (like a magicjack or something like that)

Asterisk or a Cisco UC520 would be my suggestion. I'm working with a UC520 now for a CCNA Voice lab and it's very easy to initially set up. Tweaks and things can come later if you're new to the system.

How many users(or phones that would answer calls from the UC520, even in the remote office) do you have? The UC520 has 8/16/24/32/48/64 user offerings, but it's all based on the same architecture, so you can upgrade as needed.

For the person working from the second home office, check this out: Cisco Smart Business Communications System Teleworker Setup [Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business] - Cisco Systems

For answering calls at roaming locations, that's not difficult. When you set up the UC520, each phone would have an extension. You give an extension to each user. When someone calls or reaches that extension based on how you set up the system, have it forward the call to their cell phone.

Hope that helps!

/usr

Ability for one of the people to work based out another home, but have full use of the phone system from their desk... can this be done without a persistent point to point connection between the houses?

The 3Com NBX V3001 is a nice, very feature rich system. Depending on what you're wanting to spend, it can do everything you've described so far, and more.

Can support the four lines they need
Dial an extension to reach someone
Ability for one of the people to work based out another home, but have full use of the phone system from their desk... can this be done without a persistent point to point connection between the houses?
Optionally, the ability to answer calls when they at the beach and work from there (like a magicjack or something like that)

Four analog line inputs come standard, no expansion chassis or cards required.

The easiest solution for you would be to have you're remote home user initiate a VPN connection when they wanted to work / have access to the telephone. Granted, this limits the user a bit, as the VPN would have to stay up if they wanted to receive phone calls directly to the LAN phone.

With a VPN connection, you would be able to dial by extension from home and reach any other user who had a phone connected to the system, "local" or remote. This also gives them access to the phone systems functionality.

When they'll be away, you can simply have them set their calls to be forwarded to their cell (invisible to the calling party), set it up so they get their voicemails via .wav file emailed to them, etc.

Depending on the budget and need, users can use a piece of software and a mic over a VPN connection to turn their laptop into a phone, when a hardware phone isn't available (such as when they are traveling).

Depending on what vendor you choose, most decent VoIP systems are going to come with the same features. I can just speak with knowledge on the 3Com stuff because I work with it nearly every day. I know Cisco is a popular suggestion, but from what it sounds like, you may at least consider 3Com, weighing the pros and cons of each.

blargoe

Anyone have experience with hosted PBX solutions in particular?

dtlokee

I have not used it myself but I have spoken to people who have and they seem to like it for hosted and SIP trunks - bandwidth.com