PABX solutions

D

Dr Who

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Hi All

I am looking into moving my current operation from its existing location. The good and bad news is that we will need to setup the entire location from scratch. Ie: We have been operating at our parent location for long enough its now time for us to break free.

The office is 15 staff strong and we have our own dedicated Telkom line currently ( migrating should not be an issue). My questions are more around:

1) What would my bandwidth requirement be?
2) What PABX solution I use, I am not that keen on VOIP?
3) Networking - has anyone ever managed to run pastel from a cloud hosted solution? is this possible?

Regards
 
1) Really depends what you use the internet for. Small emails and casual browsing you could easily make do on a 4Mbps ADSL link. There are some good Business ADSL packages.
2) For that size you really should look at VoIP. You can either host your own VoIP enabled PBX which you can then connect to either traditional Telkom ISDN or to a VoIP provider or you can go with a hosted option. Key thing with using a VoIP trunk or hosted is connectivity. You want to dedicate a line to VoIP only.
3) Dunno, my experience with Pastel is limited. Can be run in remote desktop, so probably do-able yes.

As you can see the more stuff you have offsite the more you become reliant on connectivity. Perhaps consider something fibre based like Neotel etc.

Where are you based?

PS. Don't forget a firewall. You need something to keep the big bad internet out and be able to report on what your staff are doing.
 
I would say it really depends on what you do that determines your "bandwidth requirement".

We are and audit practice... about 10 People on a simple LAN Workgroup.

1) 4Mb line is 100% for us...most of the better areas 4Mb is upgradeable to 10Mbs.

2)We had VoIP...go rid of it... Too many little issues with calls being dropped..but mainly voice quality being the issue.. Settled again with Telkom's new OptiCon PABX System.. Works Great and runs over you LAN..so you dont need extra telephone cables to the offices.. but is NOT VoIP. Best of all.. our phone bill has decreased from VoIP to current system. R4k to R2k.. System paid for itself in 1 year.

3)We use pastel all day long...as an experienced accountant and working with I.T... cloud computing is still too "gimmicky".... Having a program such as pastel running on your own pc and not having to rely on internet is just much better... just make sure you make your own external backups.. we use dropbox for online backups...

Just our scenario basically.... if it helps...
 
Thanks for the updates guys -

In terms of VoIP I am also in agreement, I ran a call centre which operated entirely on VoIP ( not by choice ) as its numerous issues are something I do not want. More around the CLI presentation and inbound routes, not to mention the fact that you still do not get an up-time guarantee. Our phone bill is not high.

I will investigate the Opticon - PABX because I like that fact that you only need to wire once, for LAN. Currently I am settling on a 10mb business or possibly a bonded solution. While we are small we do need good connection speeds.

thanks for assistance.
 
If you're open to an asterisk based PBX that you can attach to telkom drop me a pm.

If you are considering a bonded line you may as well look at fibre. Install and monthly costs have come down.
 
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