Telephone system to join to 4 sites

mishy

At the moment we have four sites, each with their own direct telephone number but we would like to receive the telephone calls at one location and then transfer the calls to the sites after determining where they need to go. If we use the current system we have we will be charged for diverting the initial call to our main number and then charged again when we divert the calls to the relevant person plus we will not be able to determine whether the call has been answered or not because if it is not answered we will need to be able to speak to the caller and maybe divert them to another number.

We are going to keep the all the four numbers for the four sites but will need them routed to one number. I think most of our phones are already IP based.

We have about 150 users and some have direct dial numbers which they will need to keep and are based in the UK.

Can someone let me know what they currently use?

saspro

Easy enough to do.

What sort of budget do you have assigned to it?
What other features do you need?
What handsets do you have already?

mishy

saspro wrote: »

What sort of budget do you have assigned to it?

- I have not been given a budget because the manager does not know the cost so I would need to propose to them a few offers or solutions definitely with the prices.

saspro wrote: »

What other features do you need?

Voicemail and ability to return the caller to reception if it has not been answered or after a few rings. We still need to keep direct dial numbers. Ability to see if the intended call receiver is on another phone call.

saspro wrote: »

What handsets do you have already?

We currently have Nortel T7208 at one of the offices and at the other offices I am not sure what they are but they are connect using ethernet cables to a switch so I assume that they are still IP based telephones.


Hope that helps you understand. Sorry about the budget but that is something we need to look at after assessing the project.

cyberguypr

Sound like a good candidate for Lync 2010. Of course, if budget allows.

shodown

Ciscos Call manger business edition will fill all you needs

M$ Lync will also fulfill your needs

Asterisk PBX will also work, switchvox.


Your needs are pretty simple so the above solutions will work. If you wanted to use your exsiting system, I would look into just purchasing gateways that can still send your calls to the PSTN and then use the IP Wan to send calls across locations saving you money.

If your network needs overhaul then we can look at the M$ or the cisco solution. You will have to buy POE switches or powerbricks and do a possible network overhaul. As fas as Lync or cisco its more of a preference I have worked with both and they will fit your needs easily.

mishy

shodown wrote: »

Ciscos Call manger business edition will fill all you needs

M$ Lync will also fulfill your needs

Asterisk PBX will also work, switchvox.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will now have to look into the cost of each of the solutions but I think with M$ Lync I will be able to also Instant Messaging so staff will be able to communicate by IM internally I think.

shodown

be careful with lync it gets expensive very fast and has a lot of hidden cost that vendors will not be upfront with.

Bokeh

We are doing that exact thing with a Trixbox and Polycomm phones. I can set the calls to ring anywhere, etc. Since you already have or think you have IP phones, take a look at trixbox.com . I have one main office and 15 remote offices and it has worked great for us.

mishy

Bokeh wrote: »

We are doing that exact thing with a Trixbox and Polycomm phones. I can set the calls to ring anywhere, etc. Since you already have or think you have IP phones, take a look at trixbox.com . I have one main office and 15 remote offices and it has worked great for us.

Thanks I will look at trixbox but I have had a quick glance and I am not sure if it will work in the UK yet.

TLeTourneau

You should be OK from a technology perspective. Trixbox is built on Asterisk which is supposed to by location agnostic. Another good one built on Asterisk is FreePBX (which the trixbox UI was based on), they have their own distro and is actively developed. PBX in a flash is popular also. The only real problem with trixbox is that it seems to be a dead project at this point.

drkat

I'd go with a IP Solution - you could even go "hosted" which would cut your costs and you'd pay like $26.00/mo per seat license but would include custom call flows +the devices etc.

Recommendations would be hosted or CCME - but definitely switch off a PRI to an IP

I mean I thought I saw you had a nortel but what you could do is get like an ADTRAN Total Access 900 series and PRI hand off to the nortel and sip register clients using the adtran that would allow custom call control of how to route calls etc which would probably be more cost effective than installing a NEW system.

it_consultant

mishy wrote: »

At the moment we have four sites, each with their own direct telephone number but we would like to receive the telephone calls at one location and then transfer the calls to the sites after determining where they need to go. If we use the current system we have we will be charged for diverting the initial call to our main number and then charged again when we divert the calls to the relevant person plus we will not be able to determine whether the call has been answered or not because if it is not answered we will need to be able to speak to the caller and maybe divert them to another number.

We are going to keep the all the four numbers for the four sites but will need them routed to one number. I think most of our phones are already IP based.

We have about 150 users and some have direct dial numbers which they will need to keep and are based in the UK.

Can someone let me know what they currently use?

A lot goes into this. Do you have a private line between your main site (which will receive the trunk calls) and the remote sites? If you have to forward a trunk call back over a trunk then you will have to maintain all of your current PRIs at all of your sites and pay for the calls between sites. If you have private data lines between your sites then you can port all of your trunks to your main location and send the forwarded calls over the private data lines via a phone switch to phone switch connection (in Avaya this is "Small community networking"). It doesn't matter whether your handsets are digital, IP, or analog, what matters is how you intend to route the calls.

You can come up with various cloud schemes as well, have your trunks terminate into a cloud soft switch but as another poster indicated, this is not always the most cost effective way to handle it and troubleshooting it can get overwhelming because you have to involve 3rd party tech support for basically every problem.

Oh yes, I forgot the end of your post. I manage a nine site medical practice which uses Avaya IP Office 500s with private VPLS based data lines that interconnect all sites. I manage another 3 site installation that is underpinned by a Shoretel system with private T1s that interconnect the sites.

mishy

Does anyone have a rough idea of how much it will cost for us to implement the Cisco Unified Call Manager in terms of just the Cisco equipment before we add the phones because I am sure the existing phones we have should be good enough?

We will need a Cisco gateway that will support up to 150 Users and we have four sites.

Qord

mishy wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions, I will now have to look into the cost of each of the solutions but I think with M$ Lync I will be able to also Instant Messaging so staff will be able to communicate by IM internally I think.

Don't give Lync a leg up just because of IM. It's nice to have that ability, but keep your focus on the phones.

If you want to implement an IM solution, look into Openfire. Remember that there's almost always other options.

mishy

Qord wrote: »

Don't give Lync a leg up just because of IM. It's nice to have that ability, but keep your focus on the phones.

If you want to implement an IM solution, look into Openfire. Remember that there's almost always other options.

I have been told that Lync comes with a lot of hidden charges which most vendors will not let you aware of when you take it up so you can find yourself going out of your budget after you have started using it. We have had a similar issue with Vmware and licensing issues with Win7 and Office where we were sold licences for 1 year at a discounted price and now its time for a renewal we are being charged twice what we paid.

Daniel333

There are a number of cloud based services that will meet you needs. Ringcentral was probably the best from the dozen or so I used.

Lync is awesome, but certainly pricey. But anything you bring in house is going to cost more, both from a licensing and support point of view. Also keep in mind with every VOIP system you have will need A+ grade monitoring. A single dropped or static or jitterful call will be a an angry C-level executive in your cube. You need to know about a bad call experience BEFORE your customers report it. People are 100x less forgiving about phone issues than they are general computer issues.

What do you already have? Generally commit to one vendor for support reasons. I recommend Cisco, just because I have had some many good experiences with their trainers, TAC and quality of their product. But they are certainly not cheap. And can be complicated to setup.

it_consultant

Ditto the cloud based solution. Unless you are willing to pay for private data lines between your sites hosting your own PBX is going to be a very frustrating experience. Don't believe any phone vendor who tells you that an IP call over the public internet (even with a nice fast connection) will be problem free without private lines. Ideally you should have a private line between your sites and your cloud hoster(s).