Help - office phone and internet provision

[Andy G]

Hi Guys

anyone an expert on this?

About to move offices, and need 8 phone lines, and a good broadband service.

Spoken to BT, who are not quoting me happy, 3-5 weeks lead time to activate the phone service, etc, and tbh, I know f*** all about this.

All the offices I've used in the past have had these facilities done for me!

Anyone got any advice??

Hugely appreciated.

Slightly niavely i thought swapping phone lines would be a 2 day job

[cstrachan]

BT Business broadband will have you up and running in 24 hours as long as you have a working phone line. Trying to move from one place to another and keep the same number and broadband is a royal PITA. As you need 8 lines I guess you could get 2 lines (2 lines shoule be able to be connected on a single connection) and broadband workin in the 24 hours and wait for the other 6 lines as I guess that will need new physical connections.

[Andy G]

Phone lines were ceased! 3-5 weeks to re-activate - surely not?

Thinking we actually dont need that many lines - just better broadband a move more/all external calls to Skype?

[cstrachan]

Phone lines were ceased! 3-5 weeks to re-activate - surely not?

Thinking we actually dont need that many lines - just better broadband a move more/all external calls to Skype?

3 -5 weeks only if the lines are broken, my place had not had a line in 2 years and it was on in less than 2 hours, BT business broadband was on in 6 hours.

Skype for calls is great, I take the 1 year package on all UK and US calls it costs approx £60 a year and then all calls are free (US mobiles are free think you still pay for UK). It was a no brainer for me being on US conference calls all day, it paid for itself in less than a month.

[Andy G]

Can Skype actually allocate a number so that UK domestic calls etc could be routed through it? Just investigating skype business when i came across your reponse

[sls]

We're with talk-talk business and it's a BT line and it was BT who came to install it.. As a new business with no phone line in the building at the time, well there was a line but no phone sockets... They took, wait for it 6 rater than the originally stated 2 weeks to get us up and running but to be honest the prices are great and to date the service has been excellent too..

Mark

[cstrachan]

Can Skype actually allocate a number so that UK domestic calls etc could be routed through it? Just investigating skype business when i came across your reponse

Yes you can get a number so you can call a skype phone (for a fee). I only use skpe on the PC with the headset and just use the normal phone for incoming calls.

Details here - http://www.skype.com/intl/en/features/a ... ne-number/

[Ferg]

Take it you mean you need 8 phones. 2 or 3 seperate lines would probably cover you for even high usage.

[Andy G]

Take it you mean you need 8 phones. 2 or 3 seperate lines would probably cover you for even high usage.

yes mate - just got quoted £22k a year for a 100mb line

Loving today

[Ferg]

How about a cheapy old school (physical) option?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Small-Office-Phon ... 45f9acd970

Better with a scond hand main brand jobbie but still.

EDIT:
slightly more upmarket
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Panasonic-KX-TDA3 ... 2a0f634999
loads of compatible phones out there for about £30 a pop.

[graeme]

What are you using the broadband for Andy? I'd be amazed if you needed 100mb unless you're hosting something major, and if you're hosting something you'd have people to sort this for you, so I guess you're not. It's certainly way too much bandwidth for 8 concurrent VoIP calls.

Have you asked Virgin cable for a quote? They have business products, but might not be in your area. Never used them, but the price is good.

http://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/pr ... dband.aspx

[Ferg]

Yeah 100Mb is insane. For 8 users a 2Mb would be fine but it needs to be syncronous (ie not broadband).

[Clarkie]

You have a PM

[Sanjøy]

Andy,

1 * 2mb SDSL from Ferg, depending on location you could get Ethernet last mile, this will do you for tinternet and voip

1* Server (<3 year old Dell desktop will do)

1* open source http://www.asterisk.org/ voice over ip phone system

1 * SIP Trunk (this connects your voice server to the outside worl) Ferg again

8 * handsets if you really want them, personally I am using free softphones and a USB headset on my puter. Also permits me using Iphone softphone app.

£~500 setup and what £2k pa ?

[graeme]

If Andy had the staff to support an Asterisk install, would he be asking for advice here?

I wouldn't go down that route without on-site support.