Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : VOIP etc : Setting up VOIP for a small business

[brandon272]

We are a small company that is currently looking to expand our current office telephone system. Right now we have 1 POTS line coming in as you'd expect to see at a 1 or 2 man operation and we have nothing else that is special at all.

We are going to be moving offices soon and I want to bring us into the digital age and put us on an IP telephony system, presumably powered by something Asterisk based.

However, I am a little bit confused as to how this needs to work, particularly in respect to what exactly we need. We would want to keep our local phone number, and have it tie into this system. Is special hardware required to do this? Do you still have the physical POTS line coming into your office and somehow connecting to the asterisk server, or does the phone company route calls to the server somehow?

If anyone could fill me in on the details, that would be great. I can't find a lot of resources on the web as to how exactly this needs to be set up in respect to keeping our current, local number.

Brandon

[SysAdminMan]

You would need to check with a VOIP provider as to whether they could port over your number. I know that CallCentric have something on their homepage where you can type in your number and it will tell you if you can port it. I'm assuming you'd need to get in touch with them to confirm for sure though.

This is US only though I think so you may need to check with a local provider.

If it's not possible to port your number you could host your own Asterisk server and install a card in there for your POTS line.

[paulhuynh]

Brandon are you looking to house the PBX yourself.

What type of connections do you have at each sites?

How many users at each site?


How many concurrent call do you expect to have?

Are you looking to do any call queue?

What type of phone? software or hardware base?

What country and state are you located in?

Do you looking to get internation number as well?

Do you have current number you would like to port over?

PM me if you think i can be at your service.

[trafficlight]

Brandon,

I helped my employer build a similar setup.

We have 3 POTS lines and have bought several other phone numbers/outgoing lines from Vitelity.com. We are have server in the office running Trixbox. Trixbox an entire Linux distro that puts a nice frontend management site to Asterisk. In the server we bought a Digium Analog card from voipsupply.com. That card takes our analog lines. You can then setup dial plans for incoming and outgoing calls based on how you want calls to flow. i.e. outgoing phone calls should go out the Vitelity line so the analog line stays open for incoming calls.

For phones we are using Grandstream GXP-2020s. There are is a love/hate relationship with Grandstream phones but I happen to like them. They are cheap ($100) compared to Cisco and Polycom and with the latest firmware releases they are very stable.

It's a time consuming process to get it functioning the first time, but it's really flexible once it's working. Message me if you have questions.

[kmlvinc]

Originally Posted by brandon272

We are a small company that is currently looking to expand our current office telephone system. Right now we have 1 POTS line coming in as you'd expect to see at a 1 or 2 man operation and we have nothing else that is special at all.

We are going to be moving offices soon and I want to bring us into the digital age and put us on an IP telephony system, presumably powered by something Asterisk based.

However, I am a little bit confused as to how this needs to work, particularly in respect to what exactly we need. We would want to keep our local phone number, and have it tie into this system. Is special hardware required to do this? Do you still have the physical POTS line coming into your office and somehow connecting to the asterisk server, or does the phone company route calls to the server somehow?

If anyone could fill me in on the details, that would be great. I can't find a lot of resources on the web as to how exactly this needs to be set up in respect to keeping our current, local number.

Brandon

Asterisk is by far the choice for IP telephony PBX (open source) servers. If you only have a small office with a couple of phone lines, you would definitely want to check into a hosted pbx service. There are many out there who can provide you with exactly what you need. Service, PBX, etc.

What you will need to get your office transitioned to VoIP are the following:

• PBX
• IP phones (easier than adapter)
• Ported number to ITSP (internet telephone service provider)

Your number being ported over seems to be the biggest issue which is understandable, but check with whomever you choose to do your service through and they will be able to tell you if you can get your number ported.

[plumsauce]

For all the aggravation involved, you might as well just go to a business voip provider for your needs. After you get the local end sorted out, then maybe you can consider integrating more of the voip stack into your own control.