I second Chris' sentiments. I'll also suggest looking at a hosted solution like getjive.com which is like 25/month per handset for as much calling as needs be and a ton of features including IVR creation. If one does go the route of self-hosting, please do FreeSwitch instead of Asterisk. It's far more flexible and performant for when he wants to change it later, and if this becomes a major point of his business it can be fleshed out quite a bit to power the business without incurring a lot of cruft and code modules all over the place that become hard to maintain. That's why FreeSwitch exists, because Asterisk is architected pretty bad for long-term.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Cheers, -Tod Hansmann On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 8:48 AM, Chris Wood <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 5:14 AM, Dan Egli <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Someone I talk to on a regular basis is getting ready to open his own > > company. The expected size of the company would be about 10-15 people > once > > he finishes hiring, with more to follow in a year or two (he hopes). What > > he wants is to have all his phone calls and what not handled by Asterisk > > using IP based phones (obviously). I've talked with him a lot about this, > > but the points I could not remember dealt primarily with how the phone > > company would handle things. > > > > Supposing that you wish to have the possibility of half of these people > > (we'll say seven) placing calls or receiving calls at the same time. > Under > > standard phone setups (POTS) that would require seven incoming lines. Is > > that going to be the case if all he buys is a DID number and internet > > service? I.e. does he have to tell the phone company to sell him multiple > > DID numbers in a roll down sequence? Or is simply having the phone call > > come to the system sufficient and then Asterisk handles it from there? I > > admit I have not looked at Asterisk myself (I'd love to, but I've got a > few > > other things I really need to accomplish before I start studying a > > VoIP/PBS setup in detail) so I don't know the answers. I tend to think > that > > it's likely that he'd need multiple DID numbers and the roll down, even > > though it's all IP based, because it's likely the phone company that's > > going to generate the busy signal, and if they only have one DID number > on > > file for you, then when a second person tries to call they're just going > to > > get a busy signal (or voice mail if you have that service). But I > honestly > > don't know for sure. I'm sure he'd also need to purchase one extra DID > > number, not in the roll down sequence, that he can configure to > > specifically be for the fax machine whose duties I'm sure Asterisk won't > be > > able to assume (forward to the fax, sure, but actually answer as a fax > and > > send/receive transmissions? Some how I doubt it.) > > Generally speaking, you purchase/subscribe to SIP trunks to handle > calls. The number of concurrent calls you want to handle is the > number of trunks you need. The DID is based on the number of phone > numbers you want to have -- they will run across those trunks. You > can have more DIDs than you have trunks. You can have one DID and > multiple trunks (everybody has extensions instead of their own phone > number). > > Companies typically charge you for DIDs and then charge you for > trunks. The DID charges vary a lot and can be more expensive than > they should be. > > For DID and trunks, at my last company we used: > https://www.flowroute.com/ > > Fax can be obnoxious with VOIP. I would recommend getting a copper > line from the local telco. Maybe somebody on the list has the magic > sauce to make fax easy on voip. > > > > So, what exactly do I tell him to ask the TeleCo for? He's going to be in > > southern Utah most likely (i.e. St. George area) so it's likely going to > be > > Qwest or AT&T, unless you can get phone/DID service from someone like > > McCloud USA, which I honestly don't know. He plans this to be a heavy IP > > business, so I don't think Comcast would be such a good idea, with the > > monthly bandwidth caps they like to place on downloads and uploads (has > > anyone heard of Comcast offering more than 1 mbit upload speeds?), not to > > mention their 250 GB/Mo download limit. > > Those limits on Comcast are for residential use. Your friend will > want a business grade internet account. Which company supplies the > SIP service can be independent of the company providing the internet > service. I would get the most reliable ISP he can get in his area and > then do the VOIP separate if the ISP isn't competitive. > > /* > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > Don't fear the penguin. > */ > /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
