I Volunteer at a heritage railway in Wales. We’ve got a lot of rotory phones still used for operations on a daily basis. Just wired up a Panasonic KX-TES824 to be installed replacing an older Meridian 16 line PBX. Unfortunately Openreach is threatening to shut down the incoming phone line soon so I’ve been trying to find an exchange that supports both pulse dialing phones and a sip trunk line. Not been super successful

Hi everyone

Disclaimer: I know very little about telephony systems, so please be gentle with me!

I am looking for some advice for a replacement cloud-based telephony system, for a friend who owns a small business with around approximately 15 staff.

Here's the requirements:

- Virgin Media broadband Voom 400 Mbps download / 40 Mbps upload, I believe
- Onsite users: 7
- Offsite users (field based): 4
- Handsets would be great for the onsite users and perhaps an app for the users whom have mobiles already, based in the field
- The business makes approximately 150 calls per month - just UK domestic calls to landlines and mobiles and not International calls requirement I am aware of. They would need to keep the current business telephone number
- Call features required if possible: Call management, Caller ID and blocking, Call forwarding, Call recording, Call transfer, Call waiting, Do not disturb, Auto-attendent or Interactive Voice Response, Call queues, Music on hold, Hunt groups, Voicemail to email/Text, Video conferencing, Instant messaging/Team chat
- Contract: No more than 2 years ideally with no lock-in after the 2 years
- Unified comms on the mobile phones where they are supplied in the business (iPhone 15/16 etc.)
- Admin portal if possible
- The business currently has a tiny PBX box I think, in the offices that currently just serves just 1 extension (1 external business telephone number)
- All devices are either Windows 11 or Apple (iPhone and iPad) and they are licensed within the Microsoft 365 eco-system, so they use Teams currently. They also use Hubspot (I think!) for the CRM, so any integration within Microsoft 365 and Hubspot CRM, would be great
- Clear reporting for call stats etc

If anyone could recommend a basic solution for this, and any trusted businesses/suppliers to approach, I'd appreciate it. It has to be competitive and meet as much of the above as possible, with the constraints of this being a small business, with a limited budget.

Thanks all and apologies if I have used wrong terminology above!

Many thanks

It was unmoderated, I got it now.

A victim of the ice storms...

Our NEC phone system has been replaced with a Cisco VOIP system. What value, if any does this old system have? How do we properly decommission/wipe the system before selling?

Good morning, everyone.

I work for an MSP, and one of our customers has an NEC SV9100 PcPro PCB system. The system works fine, but the customer just lost their receptionist, and they are wanting for all incoming calls to ring direct to their extension. They have an IVR in place, and I made the changes suggested by Google to have the incoming calls ring direct to their extension, but only after the IVR message is completed. The user says they can see the incoming line flashing, then go solid when the IVR answers, but once the call moves through the IVR, it never rings to their extension, the incoming line only flashes on their phone.

Any ideas? This is my first time working on a PBX like this, so I am lost here.

TIA,
Gene

Hello, I'm hoping someone can help make some suggestions as to a good PBX/VoIP option to deploy in my company. My current PBX system is an on-premise system made my Inter-Tel and has been a workhorse, but it's no longer supported and it's starting to fail and have problems, and it's getting harder and harder to find parts. ** Please note that I am very novice with this stuff so please forgive me if I'm not making sense or using the wrong terminology.

The needs I have are somewhat specific due to how the company is set up. Quick rundown of what we have. It's a manufacturing facility, so we have a small office of around 12-15 people each either with their own handsets, and a large shop and warehouse area where we have handsets placed throughout the space so we can page/intercom supervisors, and other factory workers. In reality, only the dozen or so office phones need to be able to make external calls to the outside world but very seldomly, a factory phone could also be used to make an external call. When you add the shop handsets to the overall count, we probably have 60+ handsets overall in the company.

The issue I keep coming across when people try to sell me cloud based/VoIP solutions, is it gets very expensive per month to do this with the overall number of handsets we have. This is because all these cloud-based models seem to charge per handset, per month. What I have now with our older on-premise PBX system is basically only paying for 6 POTs lines monthly from the telephone company. These "analog" lines feed into our PBX, and the PBX does the switching for any external calling from the handsets. We never run into running out of trunks with the small office we employ as only about a half dozen are making calls routinely, and the other half is making calls just every now and then. In my 10 years here, 6 POTs lines has never been a problem, so I don't see the need to pay for more than that.

Because we own the PBX system, we only pay about $120 a month for the POTs lines ($20 per line). However, when I get quotes on newer PBX systems, and cloud-based systems, I tell them the # of handsets, and the monthly cost gets crazy. I try to tell them only a dozen handsets need external calling, and the rest is for internal intercom/paging, but no one can seem to point me in the right direction on how to come up with an affordable solution that fits our needs.

In order to get something more modern with rich features, and still keep our monthly cost the same or close, I am fairly convinced I need an on-premise system or some sort of hybrid system, that uses SIP trunks for the calling, but can still tie into our loudspeakers, and operate internally if the Internet is out. I am willing to make a large investment to own a system outright as our last system has lasted around 20 years and has been well worth the cost.

There are certain features we need, and some we would want to explore.

• The internal intercom system is crucial in our shop environment. i.e. Being able to dial any extension in the company and speak to each other without taking up a POTs line or SIP trunk. Also, if the phone/fiber company (Metronet) is down, these internal intercoms would still need to work because we have a separate wired network for the phone system (all Cat5e I believe). Our computers are also on a separate Cat5e network as well, but the 2 networks could be interfaced together if needed for IP features.

• Currently, we use a device that interfaces with our PBX that lets us dial out to broadcast over loudspeakers in the shop to page people to come to the front office, or the shipping office, etc.. We need this. It allows us to ask people to call the office, and they can walk to the nearest handset in the shop and just dial any office extension.

• We have a night bell system for our 2nd and 3rd shift where a staffing is able to call in after hours, and dial a number, which then rings a bell in the shop which is an indicator for the night foreman to go find a phone and pick up the call. I'm sure there are more modern ways to accomplish this now, but not everyone wants to use their personal cell phones for things like this, so having some sort of system like this is needed.

• Obviously, caller ID and the standard call forwarding, hunt groups, etc.. is required.

• Being able to use an app to take an office call from a cell phone would be a plus, but I assume these sorts of service would come with a maintenance cost.

• Being able to tie into modern day video conferencing would be a nice thing to explore if it's within reason. We use Teams mostly for our video conferencing.

• Finally, I would love to be able to deploy 1 or 2 remote handsets in remote home offices that use the internet/VOIP to connect to the system and still be able to dial internal extensions as if the remote user is in the office. Not sure if this is possible with an on-premise system or if we would need to go full VOIP for this.

Long story short, when I explore VOIP, I seem to lose the on-premise/internal functionality we desire, and it also costs quite a bit more with the way phone deals are structured. When I try to explore the more traditional PBX technology, it doesn't seem any companies really support this type of equipment anymore, or the companies (like Inter-Tel) no longer exist.

I am hoping someone can just throw out a few company names for me to research, and explore and point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance!

Hi All,

I know this questions been beaten to death here, but i'm going to be the guy who asks it again.

I work in the IT department of a medical device manufacturing company in Canada. We currently have an older Avaya IP Office running R11, but are looking for options to upgrade and renew our communications platform.

To give some information we currently have about 40 extensions on our system, 20 of which are people who actually use the phones for calling, and the remainder being safety or convenience phones in our factory for staff to get in touch with supervisors, door phone, hunt groups, etc. We have looked at several different options (GoToConnect, RingCentral, Zoom Phone, Avaya Cloud Office, YoVu Business Phone, and a few others i was not very impressed with so I haven't listed them). We also looked at some on premise equipment like 3CX and Digium/Sangoma.

I'm hesitant to go with a fully hosted system, because we would be paying for a significant amount of phones that would never really make phone calls outside our system.

We are really looking for a modernization in our communication at the same time, so features like video conferencing, built in conference call control, and mobile app access are something that is very high on our want list. Other features we want to grow to are more DID's (for sales reps, so they are not giving out their personal cell phone), Call Recording, built in music-on-hold control, call cue's, integration with facility access control & door video phones, theres probably a few more but i can't remember them right now.

The other major thing that our senior management has stated they want is a voice interactive auto attendant, so that callers can say the department they are looking to reach, or the staff members name instead of dialing in extensions or the menu driven input (press 1 for x, 2 for....).

Anyone have some good suggestions on options that would include all of this? I haven't really seen it in what i've looked at so far, but i'm fairly certain i have not looked at the right option yet, or i've missed that part in the proposals.

Thanks in advance for all your help & thoughts.

Hi everyone, somehow i became admin for a medium sized PBX phone central. Im mostly taking care of analog and SIP devices and as far as administration goes i figured out most of the things that are needed for smooth run of (almost) everything.

Right now im in a point where i would really like to know how does it work "under the hood" so im looking for literature and articles that i can get my hands on so that i can learn more. Does anyone here have some recommendations about what to read?

I have a couple of problems I'd like to solve at work. I listen to music/podcasts with headphones connected to me PC. I also get quite a few calls on the pictured phone. I would love to be able to use the same headphones for both calls and music. I was thinking maybe I could get a USB voice modem and plug it into the phone line. I'm just not sure if the hardware and software available would allow me to use the multiple lines and other functions of the desk phone.

A 10 user site wants an onsite option to replace their ancient partner system. What is even available these days? Is there anything that will be hands off for these non-technical folks for 3 decades like the Partner?

Also is anybody still here?

We have lots of legacy Rolm and Avaya pbx's still out there, connected to music racks in various ways (i.e. with and without paging controllers). When speaking through a phone other sources should be muted. Which component makes this happen? I've always assumed it's the amplifier, but I suppose it could be the pbx trunk or other adjunct. There's one location out of literally hundreds where this doesn't work. Logic says it's the amplifier. The old one blew out a few months ago and paging hasn't worked right since it was replaced.

I'm curious after all these years if maybe I've got it wrong and the pbx should override the music. The question is a general one and not about this specific case. We might send a tech to check the paging controller; an audio tech couldn't figure out the problem.

right now i have around 200 phones/number we are paying for costing us around 8k a month just for the phones to work. majority of the calls are internal.

i was thinking we could move to vitalpbx, buy the enterprise level, port 20 numbers to https://voxtelesys.com/ for the different branches we have one for the main number and one for fax connected to ATA adapters.

using Yealink device manager i can push the configurations and buy two servers for high availability to host vitalpbx. i already have dedicated fiber for our corporate office where it would be hosted

am i over looking anything. it seems we could buy all this equipment and save money the next month after moving from ringcentral.

Hello and thanks to anyone who can help. I am a systems admin looking to improve my understanding of how dispatchable location is provided from an on premise PBX to the PSAP. I work for a K12 school district with around 500 extensions and we are planning a phone system upgrade using the ESI eSIP system. I'm viewing the phone system as a safety system first and we would like to provide as much information as possible to the PSAP regarding an emergency call as possible.

We have about 500 extensions spread across about 10 physical locations. Our PBX can provide separate emergency and regular caller ID fields per extension. We would prefer to use this field to provide the PSAP as much location information as possible, preferably to the level of floor and room number.

I've worked with our service provider (SIP trunk) but they have not been able to provide much information at all due to internal restructuring. We have also worked with our local PSAP and their equipment vendor to do a few test calls. If anyone has knowledge of this I'd appreciate checking my understanding and conclusions.

1. It is not possible to use the emergency caller id field to provide simple text information to the PSAP.

2. We will have to purchase Emergency Location Identification Numbers for any locations that we wish to have specially located by a call to the PSAP.

3. The location information for these ELINs is provided to a data broker of sorts. (I do not understand this at all. Our service provider had a very limited understanding of how this information is communicated.)

4. Any change to an extension will require us to associate the correct ELIN for it's physical location or will require us updating the information on file with this data broker.

I'd very much appreciate any professionals who can check my understanding here and possibly answer a few questions. I don't want to proceed with this deployment until I have a better understanding and our provider just axed their on-premise services division as we were partially though this transition.

Looking for comments

We're in the process of adding redundancy to our call center platform.

Current setup

1. Hosted at a tier 3 data center

2. Single did carrier with Redundant sip trucking on separate last miles.

3. All networking, servers and everything else at the main DC is either active/active or active/passive.

4. Call center (where phones are) Has redundant mpls networks connected to the DC served by redundant last miles and redundant carriers.

5. Agents are able to VPN into the call center to take calls if they are unable to get to the office.

Things were are adding

1. Local call control with local sip trunking by a did provider different from the main DC This will be somewhat limited in functionality

2. Second center more than 300 miles as redundant as the primary and will be passive until needed.

3. Second system, different software. This will be over a third carrier, and a third physical site

4. Second site to terminate VPN so agents can work if primary work place is offline.

Plan for call flow when it's all in place A. Our customer will forward calls to our main system B. If call can't be delivered to main DC it will go over shadow trucks to backup DC. C. If call can't go to backup DC either carrier will forward the call to the local call controller over a different carrier. D. If that carrier has issues one of two things will happen. Our client will reprogram to send to the second system or the local call control carrier will.

Some questions

1. How many forwards can a call handle before it fails, something similar to too many redirects on the web.

2. What have others done to eliminate carrier caused problems?

3. Anyone who see areas where we can improve brains besides another center with more agents?

Hi, I was recently put in charge with saving the company some money. The company used to have 20 or so workers but COVID hit us hard and we are now a ghost town at the main location. We are currently paying about 175 bucks a month in the U.S. for a cloud hosted VoIP solution.

My boss would like the following

1. call waiting with personalized message / music

2. call recording

3. one incoming number, that bounces between 4 different extensions

4. (optional) the ability to answer the call from android and iphone

5. (optional) have the call number show up on our computer screen so we can pull up customer info

I am at the very beginning of me learning about this since I was just given the assignment. Any headstart you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Our company apparently used FreePBX before I was hired. My personal feeling is to go with zoom phone but again I only have about 2 hours worth of knowledge so far.

Here is an obsolete piece of recording media. Would anyone know the exact name?

I have an Avaya Partner ACS R5 (flashed to R6). I consistently find myself glancing at the time on the system phone only to realize it’s an hour ahead. This problem started only a few days ago, and I have never experienced this issue before. In addition, I also found that the Day of the Week was set to Tuesday despite it being Thursday (the date was correct, not the day of the week). Please keep in mind that the system automatically calculates the day of the week when you first program it on this revision, and it has always been correct until now. I recently switched to MagicJack as the service provider for the outside line, and I am wondering if this is resulting in the time and/or day of the week issue. However, MagicJack states it only uses Eastern Time (what the clock on my system should be). I can fix the time/date manually, but it is a time consuming task and if I can resolve the issue, I will. Thank you for any help, it is much appreciated.

I'm falling down a bit of a rabbit hole and now I need help as I'm slightly out of my element. I'm a retro computer enthusiast and desperately want to recreate the true internet experience of the late 90s/early 00s and setup my own 56k dial-up ISP for my old computers. I have created a working 33k dial-up server already using a couple Cisco ATAs and modems. During my research, I realized that 56k modems cannot connect to each other at 56k and you need the dial-in server to have a digital telephony connection.

Now, I don't know much at all about digital phone lines. I have picked up some stuff here and there but I really don't know what I need exactly. I know I will have to buy an ISDN Terminal Adapter for the server but, per this post, something has to do call handling. The author of that post used and ISDN simulator, I don't really want to spend that kind of money as those are still expensive. They mention you might be able to use a PBX to do it and I have an old retired Panasonic KX-TDA100 that currently has the following cards installed:

• LCOT8 - KX-TDA0180 - 8 Port Analog Trunk Card

• 2x DLC16 - KX-TDA0172 - 16 Port Digital Extension Card

• DHLC8 - KX-TDA0170 - 8 Port Digital Hybird Extension Card

• MPR - Main Processing Card

I see two possible paths to my goal:

1. The author of my reference post used a USR Courier I-Modem for their server side, which I would be willing to buy. I don't know for sure, but I'm hoping I could use one of the digital extensions on the PBX to connect the I-Modem and from what I've seen, I think that's all I would have to do but could be completely wrong.

2. In my research, I found some ISDN PRI Termial Adapters. This would (at least how I understand it) allow many more connections than just the single V.90 using a one modem. I see there is the KX-TDA0290 card for my PBX that can be used as a PRI extension or trunk. Is it a viable option to just plug the PRI PC card into the PRI card on the PBX and do some config and presto, I now have 24 digital lines running to my server or am I missing something?

As a second part to this project, I am thinking I could add a VoIP trunk to the PBX too and take dial-up connections through the internet for extra redundant overkill. That will be later if ever because those PBX cards are still on the expensive side and 56k is very likely not going to work with VoIP anyway.

Any help or other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

We're moving away from an old Panasonic NS-500 PBX to a new system for our upcoming school site:

ChatGPT suggested features a modern PBX should have:

Auto Attendant: An auto attendant is a virtual receptionist that greets callers and provides them with menu options to connect to the appropriate department or extension within the school. It allows for efficient call routing and reduces the need for manual intervention.

1. Extension Dialing: Extension dialing enables users within the school to reach each other easily by dialing short internal numbers instead of full external phone numbers. This feature simplifies communication and saves time.

2. Call Forwarding: Call forwarding allows calls to be forwarded to an alternate number or extension when the intended recipient is unavailable or unreachable. This feature ensures that important calls are not missed.

3. Voicemail: Voicemail allows callers to leave messages when the intended recipient is unavailable or cannot answer the call. Users can access their voicemail messages from their desk phones, mobile devices, or through email.

4. Call Recording: Call recording is useful for quality assurance, training purposes, or capturing important conversations. It can be beneficial for maintaining records of important phone calls, such as parent-teacher conversations or administrative discussions.

5. Conference Calling: Conference calling facilitates multi-party conversations, allowing participants to connect from different locations. This feature is valuable for school staff meetings, parent-teacher conferences, or remote learning sessions.

6. Call Queuing: Call queuing holds incoming calls in a queue when all available lines are busy. It ensures that callers are informed of their position in the queue and provides them with estimated wait times. This feature is particularly useful during peak call periods, such as enrollment or event registration.

7. Integration with Unified Communications: Integration with unified communications platforms, such as email, instant messaging, and collaboration tools, enables seamless communication across different channels. It allows staff members to communicate efficiently and access messages from a single interface.

8. Mobile App and Softphone Support: A PBX system that offers mobile app support or softphone capabilities allows staff members to make and receive calls using their smartphones, tablets, or computers. This flexibility is especially beneficial for staff members who work remotely or need to be mobile within the school premises.

9. Analytics and Reporting: Advanced reporting and analytics features provide insights into call volumes, peak hours, call durations, and other call metrics. These analytics can help in identifying communication trends, optimizing staffing levels, and improving overall communication efficiency.

Any advice on Epygi systems?

Hey guys,

I am a software engineer and new to the telecommunication topic, I was hoping someone of you could help me or point me to a good place to find further information regarding my problem:

I am helping a friend who is running a small business. I connected his router his router to 3 VoIP phones. This is working well. However he and his is emplyees are overwhelmed with all the calls and the out of the box answering machine is not sufficent. Thats way I built a simple IVR with Twilio Flex to fit his needs. My plan was to forward calls that are not picked up by anybody after some seconds to the Twilio number that is connected with Twilio Flex. The router also has a feature that allows the forwarding of calls. However the IVR uses dtmf tones and those are no longer working when forwarding the call. Does anybody have any advice for me? Some trigger words which would help me read after the problem?

Thanks in advance Dom

Hey PBX community, first time posting. I just bought a building that has a Samsung Office Serv 7100 installed. Samsung support no longer has programming information but I have found a programming manual with the magical Google but I am only smart enough to find the manual, probably not smart enough to use it. The system is not documented, none of the current building tenants know how the system functions, and there aren't any obvious passwords on labels near the PBX.

What I know:

• 3 POTS lines connected (don't know specific ports)

• 1 Radio Shack Security Auto Dialer connected to a nurse call system that rings all extensions (know the port

• 1 analog phone that acts as a door phone that rings all extensions (don't know the port)

• 1 unknown and un located additional rj45 cable into the PBX

Does anyone have experience with this system?

How can we edit the configuration?

We are planning on transitioning away from the system in the near future, but don't want the team to be burdened before we finish our transition.

Thanks in Advance

Hello everyone,

A few weeks ago I was browsing the web and came across articles about a new PBX app/installer, some kind of "one button install!", and I left the webpage open. I was cleaning things up in my browser and accidently closed that window, and now I can't find that app/installer anywhere! Can someone help me?

The web page was blue, with a large circle with white-ish text saying, "Download installer now" or "One click install!" something like that. I realize I'm not giving much info, but I'm hoping someone who has used this will recognize the page and action words. Thank you.