VOIP in a small business setting

Hello! I am the technology director for a small business that is just about to move into our first office. Right now, we do not have an office and so we have a 1-800 number that forwards to our personal phones. When we move into our office, we are looking into a VOIP system instead of a landline.

Here's the situation: We will have a wireless router hooked up to a ADSL line. We initially will have 3 employees working in this office, but will need the capability to expand. Initially we will only have one phone line. We would like to have extensions and voicemail boxes for each employee, as well as an automated answerer. We would like to have physical phones to sit at the desk. We would also like to be able to use the same VOIP system at our homes, also on ADSL lines. I know that we could get a VOIP PBX, but those are very expensive and I don't know if it would fit into our budget. To sum it up:

-Wireless router, ADSL (1.5 Mbps or greater)

-3 employees

-1 line

-Need expandability

-Extensions

-Voicemail

-Automated answering

-Physical phones

-Ability to use same VOIP system at home and while traveling to answer customer calls

So basically, what we want is to use VOIP for the things listed above, but either avoid using a PBX or find a very inexpensive one.

Thanks! Have a great day.

Reply to
Evan
Loading thread data ...

Axon = Free Brekeke = SIP server is free, PBX costs money Asterisk = Free sipXPBX = Free

But wait for the competent people to answer :-)

Reply to
Vincent Delporte

A lot of people Think that 'voip' means they can just plug it into their LAN - danger will robinson! You must design the network so that phone calls have QoS support (Quality Of Service) - in other words phone calls take priority over other uses, such as sending large design files over the ethernet.

Reply to
Rick Merrill

Your bandwidth (especially upstream) is really going to matter here. You'll also probably want static IP, so your home extensions can find it easily, and your ISP doesn't give you any trouble about running 'servers'.

Trixbox (nee: Asterisk @ Home) runs just fine on a $343 Dell 'n' (No Windows Tax) series box. You can hang individual extensions off it that live at your homes.

Reply to
William P.N. Smith

It also runs great on a $50 ebay clunker :)

Reply to
gremln007

Have a look here

formatting link
you can do everything you want to do inc virtual PBX

Reply to
pcdoc

formatting link

Let them do it for you.

Reply to
ted

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.