VoIP Hardware

[MastaChief11]

Hello,
In the future, I will be in need of 10 - 15 VoIP phones, but I am unsure of what specifically I will need to buy.

 

[InvalidError]

One cheap alternative: if you already have a server running various things, you could simply add Asterisk on it to manage your external VoIP account, create PBX VoIP accounts for every employee and simply have them load CSipSimple or similar on their smartphone or tablet.

If you want to use a single ATA and some mix of wired and cordless phones, most ATAs can only handle 6-10 phones so you would probably need to use some form of cordless solution to reduce the ATA's load. Panasonic has a fairly decent DECT6 kits with four handsets (expandable to six) for $130-170 so 15 phones would set you back around $600 or ~$40 per phone.

 

[bill001g]

The phones are the cheap part. You can actually use soft SIP client phones on a PC with headsets if you really have a money issue. There are a number that are free.

The big expense comes in the brain that controls this. Cisco calls this the call manager and mostly what it does it keep track of what IP is using what phone number and the if the phone is busy or not. Still this is not all of it. The other expensive thing lets you integrate into a real phone system. In general terms this is called a SIP gateway. But pretty much its purpose is to convert phone signalling between SIP and the protocols used by the telephone companies. Many times you buy the SIP gateway as a service from the telephone company. Some also offer the call manager function but it tend to be better to run your own.

Still this will likely cost many times more than what you have budgeted for the handsets.

 

[bill001g]

If you have the wiring to support the phones it will likely be cheaper to use analog phones. Many times the need for VoIP it to avoid having to have data and voice cables. Phone systems unlike computers still tend to be very expensive even for simple things.

Another alternative is to see what kind of deal you can work with a cell company. If you are going to be paying for cell phones like most companies do it may be cheaper to add things to a phone plan than to put in another phone system. You can put microcells in the building if the coverages is not real good. The cell company will almost give them to you since it uses your internet rather than their cell towers to carry the first leg of the call.

 

[InvalidError]

Would it be easier to use an ATA system because there wouldn't be much software setup involved? It sounds like I could take regular phones and hook them up to an adapter.

Most ATAs out there only support 1-2 lines. If you want more than that, the cost starts sky-rocketing if you want 10-15 fully independent calls.

On tablets, phones and PCs, you can find some decent free SIP clients and Asterisk is also free aside from requiring a computer of some sort to run it on and are willing to work at figuring out how to make it work for your purposes. Of course, if you run SIP software on PCs, you will likely want to provide headsets so that's another $20-40 per seat there.

 

[bill001g]

If you are willing to outsource everything there are a number of software phone systems. Of course skype is one of the more well known. The key cost is always the lines that connect to the telephone company even with ATA systems.

 

[InvalidError]

Is there any free or cheap software that I can use to make phone calls to landlines on Windows? If not, I think an ATA system would be best.

There is a handful of FREE SIP clients for nearly all platforms... you can even use Skype - though you do need to pay per-minute for calls to landlines.

I used to use XLite 3.x on Windows until they forced upgrades to their 4.0 client - I really disliked the new interfaced and that is when I decided to try using my N7 tablet as a WiFi/SIP phone.