[serious] anyone using VoIP

[szlamany]

We are thinking of getting a new office phone system that uses VoIP...

The sales guy brought his own office phone to my shop - plugged it into our network - and he could receive his office calls right at my desk - even forward them to others in his office 100 miles away.

But it needs 5 down and 2 up for network speed - and my dsl is only 1.3 down and .3 up - time to call cable I guess???

[penagate]

You can run voice on worse; it just depends on your compression codec.

However, I'd suggest going for more bandwidth if you can, if you value being able to hold a conversation over the phone.

[szlamany]

Cable just gave me 16 down and 2 up for less then I pay for DSL - I'm thinking the switch from DSL to cable was a good idea just waiting to happen!

[penagate]

Good stuff!

Let us know how the VoIP system goes.

I am intrigued to know how the salesperson was able to hook into his office system with only his handset. I guess they must have set up some sort of remote access for their PABX unit.

[szlamany]

The system has what looks like a router - that your regular "land phone lines" plug into (up to 6 land lines). This router then pushes those land line phone calls out to the network - so that it's delivered to phones at the desk via the nic cables (or out over VoIP).

At least that's my initial understanding - without actually playing with it myself!

[TomGibbons]

I am intrigued to know how the salesperson was able to hook into his office system with only his handset. I guess they must have set up some sort of remote access for their PABX unit.

Could have been a SIP phone that registers with an external PBX server. You wouldn't even need to change any settings as long as the firewall wasn't blocking anything.

[penagate]

Yeah that is what I suspect — I am used to working with PBX servers which are only accessible from within the network.

[lerroux]

i think it really is a SIP phone and the proxy server was made available from the internet. and if the firewall doesn't translate that RTP ports through NAT, then the communication should have no problem

[szlamany]

This is the hardware/software manufacturer - and the model we are getting

http://www.allworx.com/phone_systems/6x.asp

Click on the MORE INFO button and check out the features on PAGE 4 of that PDF.

This is all new to me so any advice or criticism is welcome!

[NeedSomeAnswers]

I have had VOIP phones at a couple of places i work so far and they work great, the best bit is you can pick up your phone take it to another desk plug it in to another network port and your done, it just works with the same phone number !!

Makes office moves a whole lot easier !

I think you can also do some clever thing with call queues if you have the right complementary software as well !!