SMB VoIP phone recommendations FreePBX, SipXecs

Convince them to go all VoIP. PSTN will go away as soon as incumbents can get out from under federal requirements. If you are concerned about call quality, talk to your ISP and see what is available.
VoIP has come a long ways even in the past year; call quality on a decent link is phenomenal- much, much better than PSTN. I understand there are technical requirements for PSTN in some situations, but my personal take is go VoIP end to end- far easier to manage and better quality.

I agree with you, thing is that I'd have to use their DSL connection for the VoIP and then setup QoS on the router for voice. And, maybe it's just in my head, but PSTN seems to be a lot more reliable than VoIP, at least here in Canada.

Is that the normal/best practice at small businesses with VoIP? One internet line coming in that's shared between data and VoIP?

edit: ok I'm looking at my ISP's small biz stuff now and they have something called IP trunking... how is this different than another data line connection?
 
I use small business DSL lines for both data and VoIP. The big gotcha is making sure you have enough upstream bandwidth- downstream is typically plentiful.
I use pfSense with QoS and it works well for me. The big issue for VoIP in Canada may very well be packet latency; I know at one time there was a general lack of ITSPs in Canada. I know VoIP.ms has at least two canadian servers (Toronto and Quebec I think) which may reduce latency.

You'll have to talk to your ISP to get the exact details as there is no apples-apples once you get away from carrier lines (T-3, OCx). You basically pay more for less latency/closer to ISP's PoP and less over-selling of the line.

I beat the 'unreliability' issue by offering free emergency failover to any number- typically (a) cell phone(s). I tell customers VoIP actually has MORE failover options than PSTN- you usually have to call the business service line to get your numbers forwarded in an emergency; with VoIP you can set it to automatic.
 
Here in my office I have Comcast business internet and AT&T residential DSL... it's about the same price as a business phone line.
 
@pookguy88

Having a pstn around is still a necessity for a system of most sizes. If someone wants a physical, reliable fax machine for instance, you have to use pstn. If they have a firealarm, you need TWO pstn lines to comply with fire-code in my area.

911 (or whatever your equivalent is) still works better on PSTN.

On top of all of that, you get a nice failover line to put their minds at ease and not have just the owners/secretary's/whoever's cellphone ringing when the internet is out.

That being said, The companies without firealarms, without a physical fax machine, and people not minding forwarding to their cellphones, I still set up straight voip.
 
I've setup a mix of pstn for most of the expected call volume, and pay per minute SIP trunks to handle overflow. That way people aren't paying 100 bucks a month for 2 extra lines that might only see a couple of calls per day.
 
Fire Alarms or security alarms aren't typically routed through a PBX to begin with, so I think we can forget those outside of being aware of them when it comes time to port numbers.

Fax does work best over POTS because of compression used in VoIP. There are some codecs that are more Fax 'friendly' than others, but Fax over VoIP is not a strong point. I bundle a hosted FAX solution with my VoIP packages which has made everyone happy so far. I firmly believe FAX is a dieing technology and plan my services accordingly. I support hardware fax machines with a fax gateway.

Maybe I have a different perspective on outtages, but I wouldn't say service around here is the most reliable I've seen. I certainly understand the safety and security that a POTS/PSTN line provides- I just don't think the hassle and cost is worth it, especially since PSTN as we know it is going away. Not tomorrow, not next year, but PSTN is going the way of the dodo.

Emergency Services (911) is the one to be careful of, and definitely brief your customers on the differences between VoIP and PSTN 911. With the proliferation of cell phones, I notice people tend to call 911 from their cell phones more than landlines anyways. I properly set-up e911 for all lines and leave it at that.

If your customer is willing to pay extra (and from what I read, awesomo's are), by all means offer PSTN services- it should add to your bottom line. I'm a small shop with smaller customers- my largest install is a 20 phone 2-campus install. I don't plan to ever support hybrid POTS/VoIP service, mostly because of the added complexity and cost.

I don't disagree with awesomo on his stated PSTN views, just adding another perspective.
 
Instead of fax over pstn, can you just do T.38 ?

Locally, t.38 works great. You can have a gateway on your network somewhere and an ata elsewhere and the fax machine will be reliable. But that's where it ends. T.38 over the public internet, in my experience, delivers mixed results. Even over mpls with perfect qos it still fails every now and again. If your fax load is light, great, deal with it. But the people I deal with all expect the fax to go through every single freakin' time. You can not beat pstn for that.

Side note: Gateways exists that queue up all the fax data and deliver it reliably over the internet http://www.rockbochs.com/component/content/article/48-faxxbochs So if you REALLY wanted an internet only solution with a physical machine, that would be the way to go.

Second note: My clients big and small expect me to handle everything for them. They expect me to wire up their firealarms, alarm systems, and analog fax machines. If it was working when I entered, it had to be working when I was done installing my voip system. You can't just be like "Well, they don't go through the PBX, not my problem" Clients pay to only have to deal with one guy for the entire thing and I consistantly win quotes because of this.
 
Locally, t.38 works great. You can have a gateway on your network somewhere and an ata elsewhere and the fax machine will be reliable. But that's where it ends. T.38 over the public internet, in my experience, delivers mixed results. Even over mpls with perfect qos it still fails every now and again. If your fax load is light, great, deal with it. But the people I deal with all expect the fax to go through every single freakin' time. You can not beat pstn for that.

Side note: Gateways exists that queue up all the fax data and deliver it reliably over the internet http://www.rockbochs.com/component/content/article/48-faxxbochs So if you REALLY wanted an internet only solution with a physical machine, that would be the way to go.

Second note: My clients big and small expect me to handle everything for them. They expect me to wire up their firealarms, alarm systems, and analog fax machines. If it was working when I entered, it had to be working when I was done installing my voip system. You can't just be like "Well, they don't go through the PBX, not my problem" Clients pay to only have to deal with one guy for the entire thing and I consistantly win quotes because of this.

unless your network is complete crap, even ulaw works fine for fax on local networks... also i've found that providers that claim they offer T.38 are hit and miss... so right now the faxes remain pstn...

what i'm not sure about is if it's worth the complexity of tying them into my system (it needs to be copper in, so i need a network gateway or cards in my PBX, and it needs to be copper out, so i then need an ATA or similar) sometimes i see where it's worth it... for example i use fax as copper backup line for all internet voip trunk locations.... i have the voip trunk w/ my provider failover to the copper number if i lose internet connectivity or something... that number will dial into my PBX and detect whether it's a voice call or a fax...

also have 911 set up the same way to arrest any faxes in progress and use that copper line for emergency that way i don't have to deal with E911 or any confusion involved with emergency services and remote users...



what systems do you deploy? what do you use to take care of these issues?
 
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unless your network is complete crap, even ulaw works fine for fax on local networks...

True. But you specifically asked about t.38 :)

what i'm not sure about is if it's worth the complexity of tying them into my system (it needs to be copper in, so i need a network gateway or cards in my PBX, and it needs to be copper out, so i then need an ATA or similar) sometimes i see where it's worth it... for example i use fax as copper backup line for all internet voip trunk locations.... i have the voip trunk w/ my provider failover to the copper number if i lose internet connectivity or something... that number will dial into my PBX and detect whether it's a voice call or a fax...

True on the hardware fxo in on a gateway server/fxs out on an ata for faxes going through the system. I handle Faxing via double ring and have the PBX set to pick up on all single rings. A super simple way to still get faxing without running it through the PBX.

also have 911 set up the same way to arrest any faxes in progress and use that copper line for emergency that way i don't have to deal with E911 or any confusion involved with emergency services and remote users...

The ring method, however, does not take this into account. The only solutions I have to this is use the alarm/fire alarm line if you have one, wait for the fax (not so good...), or E911.

I use FreePBX exclusively.
 
True. But you specifically asked about t.38 :)
wasn't me, but just felt like i needed to clarify that...

True on the hardware fxo in on a gateway server/fxs out on an ata for faxes going through the system. I handle Faxing via double ring and have the PBX set to pick up on all single rings. A super simple way to still get faxing without running it through the PBX.

i don't get this.... explain how that works? sounds like something i should know

The ring method, however, does not take this into account. The only solutions I have to this is use the alarm/fire alarm line if you have one, wait for the fax (not so good...), or E911.
i wait for the fax, and no, it's not IDEAL, but ultimately if the caller has to hear a few extra rings only when the main internet voip trunk is down, i'm not caring so much about that... but it does take some tweaking so that most faxes will come through... also in a lot of locations i have that copper line RJ11x -> firebox -> another RJ11x -> burg panel -> my network gateway then the FAX machine sits on an ATA of some sort...

I use FreePBX exclusively.

ok, good, me too, just wanting to clarify.... (i use the distro)



it's kind of irritating to me because the whole fax situation is really preventing me from streamlining the whole thing... i'm thinking the rochbochs service might solve those issues, but it's not particularly cheaper than just using copper... although it does include cool stuff like fully archiving all your faxes... nice if your fax machine goes down (runs out of ink, explodes... whatever)
 
@godooper

Yes, faxing is a bitch, and if I was managing the company, I'd tell everyone you need to fax virtually, or not at all. I am so sick of the damn fax machines! Someone needs to come out with a more affordable solution like the fax bochs, it's such a great idea.

I am guessing you needed qualification on the following:

You just need to pick up a distinctive ringer service with whoever your pstn provider is. You essentially would have a single phone line with two phone numbers. Phone number #1 would ring the normal rings, Phone number #2 would be a distinctive ring. Then you set the fax machine to pick up on that distinctive ring, and set FreePBX (I use the distro as well) to pick up on single rings (which it is by default). You split the line coming into the building, one split goes to the pbx's fxo interface (be it a sangoma pci-e card, an audiocodes fxo gateway, or some other fxo interface), and the other split goes to the fax machine. That way both your server and fax machine have a direct connection to the pstn on the same physical wire and they both know what type of calls they each need to answer.
 
So those that use PSTN lines, do you use fxo cards or analog gateways typically?
 
So those that use PSTN lines, do you use fxo cards or analog gateways typically?

Sangoma pci-e fxo cards with echo cancellation. I have tried quite a few solutions and those win. SipX seems to be pushing audiocodes gateways with their system, pci-e cards have terrible support on sipx.
 
I've been using rhino cards, as they always worked pretty well. I'm thinking about trying something else, I have a background noise issue (just like a hiss/crackling) on a recent install that I just can't solve.
 
@dave99

I haven't given Rhino a try personally, but they are supposedly second best to Sangoma with excellent support. There are a lot of things that can cause the issues you are describing, impedance mismatch, rx gains, poor server grounding, etc... Give Rhino a call, they should be able to help you get to the bottom of it.
 
Yeah, I've been working with them. Not much in the way of ideas, other than flash the firmware and see if it helps (which I'm trying tonight). Already messed with rxgain, fxotune, cabling etc. Can't imagine firmware making much a change, but we'll see.
 
To trace down the noise, you'll need to see where the noise is entering the signal chain. Dollars to donuts it is in the peripheral card. You can try moving to another slot, try lifting the server's AC ground temporarily (use a 3-conductor to 2 conductor adaptor, or snip the ground pin on an extra power cable), try unplugging/stopping fans, and of course, use a butt set to see if the noise is on the line before it even enters your card. If your butt set can generate line voltage to power a dead pair, connect it directly to your card and see if you still have noise. Sometimes blowing canned (very cold) air on the card chipset can temporarily change the noise level, pointing to the amplifier/chipset itself.
 
good ideas, I'll give them a shot. I'm an IT dude, who dabbles in the phone stuff a bit (and fully notifies clients of this beforehand). The client is ok with the noise, it doesn't quite reach the threshold of annoying, but I'd still like to get it cleaned up a bit more for them. The old system was dead quiet though, so I don't believe it's the lines. Calls between extensions in the office are dead silent, so it's somewhere from the rhino card on out to the pots lines.
 
Slap a generic POTS phone on each line going into the Rhino 1st and see if the noise exists there. It' could be that the lines were moved around during install of the new system and you're hearing induction before the Rhino card.

Also, I've used some Xorcom stuff in the past. Great middle ground between an IP gateway that needs programming and an internal card. In the event of a failure, just swap the unit and reboot. All programming is in the box. I've heard that you can even pass them through to a VM since it's USB.
 
Well, none of the suggestions worked (from this thread or from rhino). All the lines are quiet on a regular analog phone, background hiss through the PBX. Hopefully rhino will ship me a replacement, and and I'll install it on spare hardware to swap out.

On a different note, conference room phones, what's a current reasonably priced model?

I've used some clearone models I got for a steal a few years ago, but they are getting old and flaky.
 
Well, none of the suggestions worked (from this thread or from rhino). All the lines are quiet on a regular analog phone, background hiss through the PBX. Hopefully rhino will ship me a replacement, and and I'll install it on spare hardware to swap out.

On a different note, conference room phones, any particular favorites that aren't crazy expensive?

I've used some clearone models I got for a steal a few years ago, but they are getting old and flaky.
 
On a different note, conference room phones, any particular favorites that aren't crazy expensive?

Define "Crazy Expensive".

http://www.amazon.com/Polycom-Voice...3132&sr=8-3&keywords=polycom+conference+phone

Something like that coupled with an FXS ata is awesome for small-medium conference rooms.

Good luck on your card issue. Keep in mind, it may be the server... In which case, an audiocodes gateway may a better solution and you can pawn the rhino card on ebay.
 
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Guess I hadn't really considered an analog phone with an ata. Looking at the sip models, seems like anything worth a damn is $600+, that's pretty pricey for small biz clients.

I'm configuring a spare server to swap out, only the rhino card will be the same. Hopefully that helps.

rhino wants me to record the hiss with dahdi_monitor and send it to them, not sure how well that will work.
 
The Polycom 5000 is only about $100 more, less when you factor in the ATA.
 
Polycom phones have a pretty impressive speakerphone built-in; I'd look at the VVX500 or VVX 600- you can also had a webcam for video conferencing. They are great for a smallish room/ office.
 
I just ordered a Digium D70 phone to play with. It appears to fully support everything I loved about the Aastra's but in a nicer package and with better support. I can't wait to try it out!

So far the contenders are as follows:
Yealink for price/features/reliability
Polycom for small installs that REALLY require the strongest performing speaker phone. Or bigger installs that will require the added distribution and reliability of SipX.

Edit: SipX isn't necessarily more reliable than asterisk. It just allows for a fully distributed system with no single point of failure. You can run every service on a different server if you'd like. Asterisk does have a way to have high availability, but is no where near as elegant as SipX in this regard. I still adore Asterisk/FreePBX over SipX though with all of the testing I have done. Asterisk is WAYYYY more customization and has WAYYYY more third party support for add-ons, both paid and free.
 
Is the power going to the server running through a UPS? If so, is it properly grounded and is it a true sinewave UPS?

99% of the time noise induced on a ATA is crappy power so I would start there with the server.

Also worth a shot changing slots.
 
Still stumped on this issue. After moving the rhino card to a completely different server, still had noise. Configured my yealink phone on their system, no noise. Tried isolating one of their cisco 7940's (took it off the poe switch, plugged into a different switch with a power cable), and still had noise. Just can't figure it out, something is causing the noise in the cisco's phones by themselves, but only when on a POTS call (not extension to extension). I'm pretty much ready to just ditch the ciscos and buy yealinks and just eat the cost to be done with this.

As for the above, it's an apc smart-ups 1500, I can't recall if it's true sine. Tried a different UPS, and directly from the outlet also. All the same.
 
Still stumped on this issue. After moving the rhino card to a completely different server, still had noise. Configured my yealink phone on their system, no noise. Tried isolating one of their cisco 7940's (took it off the poe switch, plugged into a different switch with a power cable), and still had noise. Just can't figure it out, something is causing the noise in the cisco's phones by themselves, but only when on a POTS call (not extension to extension). I'm pretty much ready to just ditch the ciscos and buy yealinks and just eat the cost to be done with this.

As for the above, it's an apc smart-ups 1500, I can't recall if it's true sine. Tried a different UPS, and directly from the outlet also. All the same.

Cisco never did have a love for SIP. With what you have said, I wouldn't doubt it being a firmware issue.
 
Just weird, I've used this exact same config (server, phones, switch) several times before with no issue, only difference being an 8 port rhino card versus 4 ports or pri rhino card in previous configs.

Might try downgrading the firmware a couple of steps see if it does any better.
 
What servers are you guys using lately on small installs? I've typically used dell (like the old sc440's), not sure what works well out of the box. T110-II work ok?

This would be for a 20 person office, so it doesn't need to be much.
 
What servers are you guys using lately on small installs? I've typically used dell (like the old sc440's), not sure what works well out of the box. T110-II work ok?

This would be for a 20 person office, so it doesn't need to be much.

i custom build w/ atom based boards... it really doesn't take much at all...

that's actually what's in schmoozecom's boxes... just simple realtek nic atom boards and 160GB hard disk drives....
 
What kind of cost does that run you?

a typical setup i might build:

wallmount $23.92, bolt this to studs: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10516&cs_id=1051602&p_id=8627&seq=1&format=2
case $53.99 (i've not used this one so i'm not positive about it, but it looks great): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811128079
i have used their 1.5U ones though....
board $79.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121643
heatsinks should clear that case, and the case fans in the back should provide adequate cooling...
storage $74.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249029
looks like that board supports msata... you'd have to double check that... also if you need more space you can up to 120, or use a hdd if you want
mem $32.99 (wow what is up with ddr3 prices these days): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239696
psu $58.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104080
although this thing looks interesting for $34.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817129006
you could mount the brick inside too, if it fits.... but more heat...
ups $143.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842102087
you should really have one of these protecting your phone system...


all in all, <500 and you get quite a professional/clean system

now i don't mind my phone equipment looking like server equipment, but i know some phone guys try to make their server based phone systems look more like typical PBXs... via using some flat, wallmount cases...

:shrugs: that's just what i might do....
 
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What servers are you guys using lately on small installs? I've typically used dell (like the old sc440's), not sure what works well out of the box. T110-II work ok?

This would be for a 20 person office, so it doesn't need to be much.

For me, it very much depends on the client and their infrastructure. If they have ANY sort of virtualized infrastructure, then I typically make it a VM (as they'll have backup wrapped up as well). Otherwise as good cooper said, a little dualcore Atom box is enough for up to 40-50 concurrent ulaw calls or 10ish 729 calls from my testing. I've used Supermicro's 1u half-depth Atom chassis' a number of times with either a small SSD or for a small system an industrial 8GB CF card. In my experience, it's more about the NIC and the backup/restore scenarios.

Incidently, I'm just finishing up a virtualized 3CX system for a 25user client with a Patton single PRI gateway and Yealink T26's. It was crazy, a virtual PRI from Comcast was $300 less than their previous 14 POTS line contract from AT&T. So far it's been bulletproof.
 
another question, decent/reliable FXS gateway that doesn't cost a ton, probably 4 ports or so. A couple of credit card machines that still use dial-up auth, and a couple of fire alarms that need an analog line.

I'm trying to avoid this if I can, by having them switch to ethernet based readers and possibly keeping dedicated lines for the fire (and use them for incoming fax also), but I'd like to have options if they want to keep things as is.
 
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