Business Phone Systems

[ECA]

Anyone have a clue about these?

I've been given these as preliminary options but have no fucking clue about anything phone system related.
For a SMB office w/ ~10-15 phones and 3 lines.

Panasonic KX-NCP 500
NEC SV8100
Toshiba CIX 100

 

[soze]

We do this and there are loads of options, if the Internet is good enough you can even get a DrayTek PBX with a SIP Line and use Generic IP Phones which is not too bad budget wise. Other than that we mainly use Avaya or Cisco so I have no first hand experience on the ones you have mentioned.

 

[Hawkwind]

I work for a subsidiary of Panasonic so you can which system we use. The KX-NCP series works very well and we have ours over CISCO backbone worldwide. Including CISCO IP Communicator for laptops calls etc.

 

[ECA]

@soze @Hawkwind any recommendations then? We're not limited to the three I mentioned above, they were just what someone came up with so far.

Or pros/cons of systems? I literally have no clue here, imagine some granny buying a PC and being asked whether she wants dual or triple channel ram, I'm in the same area of confusion

 

[MYstIC G]

We've got Mitel at work, avoid.

 

[Hawkwind]

I can check tomorrow at the office what our current system P/N are etc. I know the deskphone is the NT400 but there are newer models such as the KX-UTG200 which, is being installed at our new Dubai office building.

Regards Pros/Cons what features do you actually require? There are a ton of features that I have never personally used. Stuff I do use a lot:

• multi call tie ins to conference people in to quick meetings
• Short code dialing other worldwide office extensions.
• Remote message system access

Voice quality is excellent and I don't have issues with it. Soze may know better systems as he is in that game. I just put tech on aircraft and bill the airlines

 

[soze]

@soze @Hawkwind any recommendations then? We're not limited to the three I mentioned above, they were just what someone came up with so far.

Or pros/cons of systems? I literally have no clue here, imagine some granny buying a PC and being asked whether she wants dual or triple channel ram, I'm in the same area of confusion

If you can go SIP then the DrayTek would fit what you need and is not a massively expensive option and it has the plus side of working with loads of IP Phones. We have installed about 15 of these to similar sized companies and they tend to be install and forget they just work and 99% of problems are fixed with a restart.

The other option I have used would be an IP Office 500 v2 which is an Avaya PBX. They are a lot more expensive by the time you have added Cards and Licenses but you can do so much more with them. With the VoiceMail Pro add on you can build very complicated auto attendants that take different actions based on the conditions you set.

Depending on what it is that you need depends on which I would recommend. If you just want one external number than rings every extension and goes to voice mail if they don't answer something like the DrayTek will be fine. If you want to set up attendants so it does x between 9 and 5 and y between 5 and 9 while doing z if it is a bank holiday all with a swanky voice menu something like the Avaya might be for you.

*I am far from an expert but we do try to be a total solution so we have installed about 80 phone systems but the two I have mentioned are the only ones I have hand on experience with that are not massive overkill for your size.

 

[ECA]

9-5 office open mon-sat with 3 lines, want all the phones to ring when a call comes in.
Don't really need anything particularly fancy, no voicemail requirements, playing a message outside 9-5 and on bank holidays would be nice though.

Essentially I want it setup and then never have to bother looking at it again

 

[soze]

9-5 office open mon-sat with 3 lines, want all the phones to ring when a call comes in.
Don't really need anything particularly fancy, no voicemail requirements, playing a message outside 9-5 and on bank holidays would be nice though.

Essentially I want it setup and then never have to bother looking at it again

With those needs something like the Draytek with a SIP line would be where I went. The Avaya which is the only other system we use is massive overkill for your needs.

 

[Hawkwind]

With those needs something like the Draytek with a SIP line would be where I went. The Avaya which is the only other system we use is massive overkill for your needs.

Same I think the Panasonic system would be total overkill as well.

 

[Vae]

Have you considered porting the numbers to a cloud based SIP solution? You buy the IP phones and pay a ~£2 per hosted IP connection charge per month plus whatever other charges for an auto-attendant system (~£13 per month). You may need a dedicated internet connection for it or QoS enabled on your router to ensure enough bandwidth. We use this type of system across ~40 sites in UK & IRE so all site-to-site calls are free and the phones work wherever they are plugged into an internet system.

The downside is that you are dependent on the internet connection which is not as reliable as an analogue solution and (possibly) a fractional reduction in quality.