VoIP straight answers please.

tRoN

tRoN

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I have been trying to get a quote for a hosted pbx system.
I understand the call and hardware costs but no one can give me a straight answer about the suitability of the preexisting Adsl 1mb line I have.
They say "sign up port numbers and see how it goes as there is no contract "

Now can no one offer a trial without some form of commitment.
 
You are always going to get conflicting feedback on the performance of ADSL for VoIP primarily because ADSL is a best effort service. If you will be using ADSL you have to have something like Vibe to handle quality of service. It may start off fine in your area, but the exchange could become congested or you simply have intermittent performance (some days are great, others not so much).

We don't recommend people use ADSL for VoIP especially if speaking to customers is the lifeblood of your business. Depending on your concurrent call requirements either stick to traditional ISDN (not possible if you are hosting), or go with a competitive Diginet based solution. If you are in the 30-60 concurrent call space fibre is probably the way to go.

Really if you are hosting the company doing the hosting should be advising you correctly on connectivity. If they can't help you there you should be looking for a company that can manage the connectivity and PBX functionality IMO.
 
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It's just that the companies are not being upfront with the connectivity part. They want to sign us up with our existing connectivity and then if there are issues they said they will consider alternatives. I want to know the price of those alternatives upfront.
 
Sounds like you need to shop around a bit more then?
 
How stable is your ADSL line, how congested is the exchange, is the ADSL line going to be used for VOIP only or surfing as well ? That is just some of the questions you need to have answered.

As a rule yes a 1 mbps DSL line will be fine as the upload speed is at least 384 kbps which will support a good 10 calls using the G729 codec.

If you are in a good ADSL area, and you are dedicating the line to VOIP then you shouldn't have a problem. However in saying this please remember ADSL is a consumer service as such it comes with a very low SLA from Telkom, so always have a backup plan if the ADSL line fails, ie send staff home with their phones or something like that. for your small office this is most probably doable larger offices would need alternate comms.

As for a hosted PBX provider take a look at Switch Telecoms, www.switchtel.co.za that have a very good hosted option, priced right and they have excellent support.
 
tRoN said:
3 phones in one office, 2 in another and 1 extension at home.
Click to expand...

That means three different Locations?

Location one: 3 ext
Location two: 2 ext
Location three: 1 ext

For the location three you can run it with 1mbps ADSL even if you run it together with your internet traffic. The VOIP device can connect directly to a sip server. you just have to monitor the quality anyway... if you experience bad traffic, you may need to upgrade the line.
Location one and two: a should say that a 4mbps or higher will do the trick.


I can see that you don't want to port your numbers before testing the system. I can suggest the following:

Buy your own VOIP devices. The Snow Brand is quite good and very good quality. Scoop Distribution have also an alternative range, all under R1000 per device http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/index.php?cPath=44_98

With your own devices you have the freedom to choose your own VOIP supplier without being attached.

Then contact a VOIP supplier and see if you can get a trial period before signing. As you own the devices, it "should" be easier.

Tell them to assign you a standard 087 number for the trial period and if you are happy you will port your own number (that can be masked into the 087 that they assign you).

In a hosted environment, you can have one main number, and the rest only extensions (even if they are physically apart). All your extensions will go out with the number assigned. And the primary number, can be assigned to any of your extensions or you can setup an IVR (autoattendant) with a press 1 for this, press 2 for that.

I have never used, but heard good comments of switch telecom.

I have used "Connection Telecom" in a more corporate environment with lots of extensions in several locations (including out of the country extensions). Very good system.
 
tRoN said:
I have been trying to get a quote for a hosted pbx system.
I understand the call and hardware costs but no one can give me a straight answer about the suitability of the preexisting Adsl 1mb line I have.
They say "sign up port numbers and see how it goes as there is no contract "

Now can no one offer a trial without some form of commitment.
Click to expand...

Ask the people at Wanatel http://wanatel.co.za/?q=node/53

They did trials, but on “grey” quality only, this was 2 years ago, things might have changed. Also not sure, but I think they run through IS, so your ADSL 1mb must better be acquainted with their data centre (Bandwidth Farm) in regards with priority.
 
webtailor said:
That means three different Locations?

Location one: 3 ext
Location two: 2 ext
Location three: 1 ext

For the location three you can run it with 1mbps ADSL even if you run it together with your internet traffic. The VOIP device can connect directly to a sip server. you just have to monitor the quality anyway... if you experience bad traffic, you may need to upgrade the line.
Location one and two: a should say that a 4mbps or higher will do the trick.


I can see that you don't want to port your numbers before testing the system. I can suggest the following:

Buy your own VOIP devices. The Snow Brand is quite good and very good quality. Scoop Distribution have also an alternative range, all under R1000 per device http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/index.php?cPath=44_98

With your own devices you have the freedom to choose your own VOIP supplier without being attached.

Then contact a VOIP supplier and see if you can get a trial period before signing. As you own the devices, it "should" be easier.

Tell them to assign you a standard 087 number for the trial period and if you are happy you will port your own number (that can be masked into the 087 that they assign you).

In a hosted environment, you can have one main number, and the rest only extensions (even if they are physically apart). All your extensions will go out with the number assigned. And the primary number, can be assigned to any of your extensions or you can setup an IVR (autoattendant) with a press 1 for this, press 2 for that.

I have never used, but heard good comments of switch telecom.

I have used "Connection Telecom" in a more corporate environment with lots of extensions in several locations (including out of the country extensions). Very good system.
Click to expand...

Great advice.

I forgot to mention that in location 1 and 2 I require 2 concurrent calls only and in location 3 just 1 call.

Also what about the different Adsl options like business versus standard consumer. Does this make a difference for VoIP?
 
tRoN said:
Great advice.

I forgot to mention that in location 1 and 2 I require 2 concurrent calls only and in location 3 just 1 call.

Also what about the different Adsl options like business versus standard consumer. Does this make a difference for VoIP?
Click to expand...

Business usually gives you lower contention ratios and sometimes gives up fixed IP which are useful too.
Does it makes a difference for VOIP? it should. I just don't particularly like ADSL. I get better connections with wireless services (which are great for VOIP as you get excellent upload speeds) but also depends of coverage.

At the end it all goes down to your budget. Do your homework and run comparisons and get the best value for your money.

PS: I mentioned before "Snow Brand"... is actually "SNOM". German VOIP Phones. Very good quality.
 
webtailor said:
Business usually gives you lower contention ratios and sometimes gives up fixed IP which are useful too.
Does it makes a difference for VOIP? it should. I just don't particularly like ADSL. I get better connections with wireless services (which are great for VOIP as you get excellent upload speeds) but also depends of coverage.

At the end it all goes down to your budget. Do your homework and run comparisons and get the best value for your money.

PS: I mentioned before "Snow Brand"... is actually "SNOM". German VOIP Phones. Very good quality.
Click to expand...

Which wireless options u referring to?
 
EOH-NS is offering corporate connectivity using dedicated wireless connections with low contentions. They are rock solid. But maybe a little out of your budget (for an office with 3 people). Around R5k for a 5mb sync line (Aprox). Not sure how much for less bandwidth. Maybe they can offer you a 1mb or 2mb.
But those connections come with SLA and all that.

Other decent wireless option can be kawuleza (they been offering something like 3 or 5 days free trial). Also amobia can be a decent option (it seems that they upgraded their network as I can see on the wifi/wireless forum). Even neotel have a quite decent wimax with good upload speed.

The only problem... it all depends of your area.
 
tRoN said:
It's just that the companies are not being upfront with the connectivity part. They want to sign us up with our existing connectivity and then if there are issues they said they will consider alternatives. I want to know the price of those alternatives upfront.
Click to expand...

Hi Tron
www.euphoria.co.za offer a 4 channel vibe enabled diginet link for R699 per month and 8 channel for R990 per month with a R 3850 setup cost. It includes the NTU, Local Leads and Cisco router for the term of the contract. The contract is 1 year and then a 90 day notice period. The prices all exclude VAT.

If your local exchange is not old and tattered your VoIP experience will be crystal clear using this technology. We have a hit ratio of 9/10 using this technology. If the line does not work due to the exchange being too old, you are refunded and do not pay for the service in any way.

George
 
georgegolding said:
Hi Tron
www.euphoria.co.za offer a 4 channel vibe enabled diginet link for R699 per month and 8 channel for R990 per month with a R 3850 setup cost. It includes the NTU, Local Leads and Cisco router for the term of the contract. The contract is 1 year and then a 90 day notice period. The prices all exclude VAT.

If your local exchange is not old and tattered your VoIP experience will be crystal clear using this technology. We have a hit ratio of 9/10 using this technology. If the line does not work due to the exchange being too old, you are refunded and do not pay for the service in any way.

George
Click to expand...

Can u not do vibe on Adsl?
Problem is that I have 3 locations and diginet will be costly.
 
Vibe is completely platform agnostic so it will work on DSL , It cannot fix crappy DSL but it will dramatically reduce bandwidth requirements if you suffer from bandwidth starvation. It also has the ability to bond multiple WAN links together to provide high redundancy.
 
What about a capped Adsl option ...quality is usually better. How does one work out how much gb will be required for an hour of call usage?
 
Bandwidth consumption varies depending on the codec that you use with your provider and other variables such as silence suppression ect, without going into the nitty gritty of all this, its not a good idea to run VoIP on open internet. That is why i suggested earlier that you use an IPC account on your DSL, this does not require an ISP and there are no bandwidth charges, quality is far better, so this is the way to go.
 
paulcolmer said:
Bandwidth consumption varies depending on the codec that you use with your provider and other variables such as silence suppression ect, without going into the nitty gritty of all this, its not a good idea to run VoIP on open internet. That is why i suggested earlier that you use an IPC account on your DSL, this does not require an ISP and there are no bandwidth charges, quality is far better, so this is the way to go.
Click to expand...

Sorry for my ignorance but this is still veeeery new for me.

What about normal data? If you run an IPC does it mean you need another Adsl line for normal data?
 
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