[ale] VOIP recommendations?

[Bob Toxen]

I recommend that you "try before you buy".  I suggest having a demo of
proposed equipment, preferably right around Noon or 1pm and/or 9am to
see how it sounds.

The quality of VOIP varies greatly, usually due to bandwidth and latency
of the network.  Most Internet Providers' Internet access is NOT
designed to support latency-sensitive applications such as VOIP.

Many such solutions have poor phone quality, typically "choppy" sound.
Such a solution for a company would loose customers.

Bob Toxen
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On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 05:11:33PM -0400, Michael Trausch wrote:
> On 08/23/2011 04:15 PM, Chris Fowler wrote:
> > Please don't try to run 8 calls over residential class DSL to save a
> > dime.
> > 
> > If you eliminate POTs you're going to have to beef up your data circuit.
> > It also needs to be reliable.
> > 
> > Look into running Asterisk and possible soft phones on their desktop.
> > If they travel you can put soft phones on Android and iOS.
> 
> I would keep the POTS, but make the inside VoIP and make it possible to
> use SIP trunking as a functional add-on to provide "burstable" call
> volume if necessary, but not as a primary outlet.  (Least-cost based
> routing, though, would be a useful addition to any small business.)
> 
> Also, I would advise that you check out both Asterisk and FreeSWITCH.
> Asterisk is a PBX system, FreeSWITCH is a lower-level system that aims
> to be a phone system switch (and can be built-up into a PBX if desired.)
>  I've been using FreeSWITCH for some time now and rather like it.
> 
> One thing you might consider doing is if they have a T-line coming in
> for telephone service, just take the digital T-line and plug it into a
> box running either Asterisk or FreeSWITCH.  That would get rid of the
> analog circuits completely and quite likely increase the probability
> that call quality will be nice.
> 
> As for handsets, the SPA-942 is nice, and there is a front-end for
> FreeSWITCH called FusionPBX that can be used to set up provisioning for
> those phones (as well as a handful of other phones, you'll want to look
> around the 'net for more information).  I've used the provisioning for
> an SPA-941 without any problems, but I would not use the 941 in an
> office environment as the display can be a bit difficult to read even in
> a fully lit office (there is no backlight on the display).
> 
> 	--- Mike
> 
> -- 
> A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
> than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
>                                    --- Carveth Read, ?Logic?
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