Questions about VoIP and VoIP-PBX ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. I am working for a small company (about 15 employees). We take calls for sales and technical supports. We have an old PBX with minimal basic functions (transfer, hold, 3 person talk, etc.). Our president is considering changing our phone system into VoIP + VoIP PBX. 1. Is VoIP mature(stable) enough now? 2. Do we keep the current phone number after changing into VoIP? 3. Is it easy to maintain the VoIP system? 4. Can we use the current old PBX with VoIP?

A. Back in 2001 one of the customers of the company I worked for then thought so, they implemented a nation wide VoIP backbone network with 6,500 Cisco AS5300's. A VoIP system is no different than a traditional PBX, and regarding the internet connection I would recommend getting one with a SLA and QoS agreement. Yes, there is no problem interconnecting the two. I have done that on a Nortel M1 using E&M ports and a Cisco 2600 in a Call Manager network. A good VoIP PBX (or Key System) will always cost more. It can be stable but this is highly dependent on implementation. If the seller does not have many years in both voice and data expect trouble. What's you network like? Do you have a QoS capable switch? Think about what you want it to do. Voice mail-yes Unified messaging-? Conference calls-yes IP trunks-? PSTN trunks-probably Fax routing (in and out)-? ACD (Automated Call Distribution)-probably A good system (sticking to major names) that can do all this and both VoIP and legacy is the Nortel BCM. I might be biases because we sell them, but we did look into many others when we were choosing a small/medium business VoIP system. Even got completely certified on the Cisco and had a 3Com on-site for over a month (what a piece of garbage). BCM is a Norstar PBX on a blade in a specialised PC (appliance) - good reliable kit, and mature stable software from the PBX side.

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