Asterisk for small business?

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ajobbins

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#1552060 13-May-2016 11:05

speed:

jnimmo: personally I would avoid Panasonic IP phones like the plague

From my own experience (just as phones for home) I would agree. I had a TGP500 and found it far less flexible than the couple of Siemens Gigaset's I had, and I quickly ditched it and went back to Siemens - which I find great. But that was a couple of years back so maybe they are better now.

Biggest complaint was how hard it was to dial out from a different line/registration - which is super easy on the Siemens handsets.

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chevrolux

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#1552439 13-May-2016 22:31

Gigaset ip dect suck. Gigaset analogue dect are good as gold.
Haven't used Panasonic.
Yealink IP dect are awesome for small sites that don't require multi cells.
My favourite multi cell ip dect phones are from Verse. Samsung, NEC and Uniden have OEM versions of them.

As for running Asterisk for a small business... if you are capable of maintaining a server then why not? The FreePBX distro is very well put together now and you will have a fairly secure server out of the box (secrets are changed off standard, fail2ban is installed and set up, and now there is even the 'sangoma firewall' module) - but still do plenty of reading on what not to do with it. The other nice thing with the FreePBX distro is you do have the option of getting commercial support if it's ever needed.

Install/maintaining small/medium pbx's is my day job. For most little jobs like this we go with Samsung OfficeServ. The Samsung digital phones give all the same features as every IP phone on the market and also being that it is a traditional pbx theyou are quite familiar for most users. All the expected features are there and there is the ability to some quite complex call flows. However, the sip licensing costs are fairly high (offset with fairly low cost hardware). Also means there isn't a "converged" network.
Quite often though there may be a special feature someone wants (advanced call flows, custom software integration, custom IVRs, etc). This is when we go to a FreePBX server as we can quite comfortably say 'yes' to any requirements as the flexibility is out matched. The other time we go to FreePBX is when multiple sites are involved - we can do multi-site with Samsung no problem but again, licensing gets quite expensive.

One other small comparison I will make... I can have a 10 handset Samsung pbx up and working (and configured properly & securely) in around 4-6 hours.
FreePBX takes much more time & effort - not such an issue of you arent paying for time but certainly makes a BIG difference of you are.

MadEngineer

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#1552627 14-May-2016 15:13

Anyone had experiance with this gear?

http://www.gowifi.co.nz/grandstream-networks.html

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radicall

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Radicall

#1552628 14-May-2016 15:18

MadEngineer:

Anyone had experiance with this gear?

http://www.gowifi.co.nz/grandstream-networks.html

Have a few installations, very easy to put together. So far reliable.

What are you looking to do?

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MadEngineer

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#1552633 14-May-2016 15:43

Not for me. More a possible answer to the OP

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chevrolux

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#1552675 14-May-2016 16:42

I got put off grandstream a few years ago after having the misfortune of having to deal with some of their ATAs. Haven't mustered up the courage to get one of their new ip phones. By most accounts though people have been happy with them.
The Digium phones are a very nice option to go with an Asterisk based server, but slightly harder to get in NZ. Otherwise Yealink are my go to - FreePBX phone apps are supported on them so that's a bonus.

sfrasernz

227 posts

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#1552719 14-May-2016 17:44

Having read through the feedback here and ongoing research I'm leaning towards a PC based VoIP solution. It's cost effective and I'm happy to manage it.

The Yealink Dect handsets look good and feedback here sounds like they're well liked. I need up to 10 cordless phones so I guess two base stations will cover it off.

FreePBX and 3CX both fit the bill. 3CX being Windows based is probably preferred due to my Microsoft experience. That said, how much work is actually done at the Linux CLI vs the web admin in FreePBX?

I know 3CX in its free capacity is limited to 2 simultaneous calls...probably sufficient 90% of the time but I would likely purchase a license. Something else I'm factoring in.

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AHitman

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#1552743 14-May-2016 18:56

I manage a smallish office (about 6-8 users) who use a FreeBPX system.

It ran for about 3 years before I had really troubleshoot any issues (when I made the mistake of upgrading to a new version which broke the ISDN cards).

I have also managed 3CX systems and have found they seem to have a few more issues than the FreePBX counterpart.

Overall I would say they are much the same to maintain, just remember that if you set it up yourself you will also have to fix the issues yourself too and I have found people are much less forgiving when it comes to issues with their phones than when dealing with other issues...

FreePBX required almost no Linux CLI interaction, once the IP address is set everything else is done via GUI

sfrasernz

227 posts

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#1552745 14-May-2016 19:12

chevrolux, Are you able to estimate what a Samsung OfficeServe installation would cost? Assuming a few SIP trunks, 2 x Desk phones and 8 cordless? can you recommend any good dealers in the Waikato? Thanks

MadEngineer

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#1552793 14-May-2016 20:57

(Ideally) A phone system should never fail nor give any hassles. It should be set and forget aside from the odd extension reprogram. It shouldn't be a device that you need to restart once a month. Good luck making a phone sytem out of a PC unless you're using a server chassis with server grade fans, HDD and PSU

+1 for samsung

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chevrolux

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#1552848 14-May-2016 22:35

As above, a phone system just needs to work all the time. People are very intolerant when they can pick up the phone and make a call.
FreePBX will do that no problem. I have heard a lot of complaints about 3cx around stability - never worked on a 3cx so can't comment with proper experience, just what I hear from people.
Will send a pm about a Samsung option

coffeebaron

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#1552851 14-May-2016 22:50

I've deployed a few 3CX systems now and have all been rock solid. The auto provisioning is very good.
+1 for the Yealink phones too.

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sfrasernz

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#1552879 15-May-2016 06:05

Here is where I'm at:

A slightly older DL360 or similar (I have spare) with RAID1
FreePBX
2 x YeaLink 52 bases installed near each other for 10 x handsets
Connected back to PoE switch
VoIP equipment will run on its own physical LAN
Server will have a 2nd NIC to rest of LAN for management and maybe a softphone.
I'm still reading but it looks like PBX should sit in the DMZ as it has a firewall.
Vodafone OfficeNet Unlimited+ product delivered over UFB for the trunks.
Somebody in the industry to consult with and QA the install once complete.

I need to confirm that Vodafone will support an Asterisk PBX. I'm a little worried about the SIP connection settings as there is very little information out there. Has anybody used voda along with Asterisk?

Reason for Voda is we're a customer already and I like the idea of sticking with a tier 1 provider. This product includes unlimited calling, 2 trunks (max) and a UFB connection. Seems a cost effective package.

jnimmo

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#1552888 15-May-2016 08:24

No reason to keep VoIP separate from data LAN, keep it simple. My first and last Yealink experience was installing those very DECT phones, they're still working fine but not a polished product. I'll leave everyone else to support FreePBX install then - but really do think 3cx is better suited to self management. (We're looking at moving 80 exts off FreePBX this year)
FreePBX you do not want on a DMZ particularly, you need it locked down to only allow traffic from Vodafone SIP IP and from internal phones. I.e at the router level.

chevrolux

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#1552931 15-May-2016 09:53

Don't put the server in a dmz. Terrible idea. Also, I would just do a vlan for voice rather than a separate lan. Much simpler.
Get a decent router (mikrotik is my pick) so you can set up dhcp options for the phones to be "plug and play". Then on your freepbx server buy the license for the commercial end point manager and set up your devices in there.
That will then get at least all the sip settings correct on your devices. Then for such a small set up you can just tweak each device manually if required.

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