New office phone system, non ISDN solution?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. We will shortly be moving to a new office. We've so far made use of a fairly bog-standard ISDN PBX solution. For a number of reasons, we'd like to use only analogue lines at our new location. The requirements are: 6 separate incoming numbers, ringing 6 different phones 3 concurrent phone calls (minimum) ability to hold/transfer between the phones 6 separate voicemail boxes If we can do this with a fully DECT solution, all the better. Any ideas on how to achieve this, particularly the 6 incoming numbers, without using ISDN, would be much appreciated. I am not interested in a VoIP system at the present time.

A. First, since you've mentioned a specific provider, I feel it necessary to start by saying that I think gradwell.com is an excellent company, with a great set of products. In addition, I know Peter personally, and he's a great guy. We've trialled a number of VoIP solutions, and I'm just not prepared to make the jump to using one as the primary phone system. Perhaps in a year or two, but not just yet. IMHO reliability and call quality for VoIP to PSTN and PSTN to VoIP calls are not quite there yet. Mobile to VoIP and VoIP to mobile has been even more problematic. I would love to use an all VoIP solution, but the need to have a glitch-free system is greater than my desire to adopt new tech. The small Panasonics are nice, the newer ones are programmable over USB. The older ones are quite affordable on Ebay, but need one keyphone for programming. It does mean you need a phone wire to each desk - an alternative is to put a rack of bases/chargers by the door, mail trays, etc where people pass in/out. Studio DECT phone/charger under twenny squids at Argos. You'll probably need at least one wired phone on the PBX anyway to comply with power fail requirements. I don't know how many channels DECT supports, but I'd be surprised if it couldn't do 6 in one room. I'm willing to have a go anyway - the outlay is quite small, and it would be nice not to have to wire up the new office for phones. I know you don't want to go fully VoIP and can understand that, but could you use 3 analogue lines for your 'switchboard' number, and people'd DDI numbers on VoIP? If both numbers are on business cards etc then if callers have a problem using the direct line they can call the switchboard. Conversely if the analogue telephony breaks but the ADSL still works (by no means uncommon) then people can try the VoIP numbers. And of course if you have some Ethernet>POTS adapters then people can take their VoIP phone home with them, if they have ADSL at home, and work from there if the office phone system falls apart completely, or if bad weather makes transport difficult.

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