Has anyone taken a small business to VOIP ?
Any experiences, hardware/software used, providers, cost effectiveness etc appreciated.
We need to keep the current landline numbers, but want to have all outgoing calls via VOIP (got to be cheaper than BT).
So really looking for some sort setup where the main phone can have both normal line and network connection - with incoming calls on the landline and outgoing via VOIP.
All the physical lines come into the building at many different places, so it would be very difficult to plug them all into one server/router device (although this could be done if required).
I am currently thinking
- Broadband connection (router with traffic prioritisation so VOIP gets preference - maybe something like the WRT54GL with DD-WRT loaded)
- VOIP provider
- Simens C640 or similar with VOIP + landline capabilities (with VOIP setup to connect to the provider or a local server)
Local server surely has many benefits - but could be complicated to maintain. Been looking at Aterisk ... But havent quite figured it all out yet. Seems an extremely capable system - way beyond what I would need.
Having my own server can also be beneficial when I need to add other locations to the network.