What is the best way to accomplish this vision for my phone system?

Todd, I wish I could give you 100 thumbs ups for your answer Mark's question. Focus is trying to make the expertise that's traditionally been reserved for the Fortune 500 available to every business no matter what size. It's about helping businesses make better decisions. It is not about vendors posting their phone numbers in hopes that Mark will pick up the phone and call. Vendors are welcome to participate in the Focus community, but it's important that they try to truly help prospective buyers with information, knowledge, data, best practices, etc before they tout their products and services.

As the founder and CEO of Focus, I am very appreciative of your contribution Todd. Remember that "Always be Helping" is the new "Always be Closing".

Scott

Mark, good point. Often times, vendors know more than end-users. We are by no means trying to discourage vendor participation. In fact, we want vendors to share their expertise on Focus. But that's the key point: sharing expertise as opposed to 1-800 numbers!

The Focus community is already getting to a point where members like you are starting to enforce high quality discussions (see Todd's comment as an example). We still have work to do on that front, but we are making progress.

Anyway, thanks for using Focus and please feel free to reach out to me anytime with any other feedback you might have.

Scott

Given your size and your experience with a 'reliable' system - I'd suggest you look for a hosted VoIP provider who can provide you with 'private' hosted VoIP - so they can guarantee your voice quality. There is likely a local provider who can use a point-to-point T1 (NOT an Internet T1) to deliver your hosted VoIP service. If I were you, I would not consider a large national provider who might tell you that you can do this over the public Internet. Though it is possible, in my experience the risk of poor quality audio is too great. Some providers can also accomplish this with MPLS for you to serve you from a greater distance.

Another bonus of a local provider: local sales, implementation, and service - these make a big difference in the success of your transition.

You might want to consider a ShoreTel system - sounds like you are to big for hosted. If you are looking to get away from owing your own equipment you might want to consider a managed solution. You do not own the equipment yet avoid all of the pitfalls of hosted.

Scott, I didn't communicate my point well. I meant to say that I applaud what you are saying about the vendors and encourage them to step up to the standard. Thanks for your site and commitment!

Mark, thanks for your question, and for the encouraging comments about Focus. And Todd, thank you for demonstrating so ably why you're a Focus Expert and how we're trying to foster more interactions like this one!

Mark, I can only add two thoughts to Todd's excellent response. It's very important that you capture your vision, expressed and documented as specific performance criteria and expectations centered around your business needs and goals. You must then use this document as a foundation for true "apples-to-apples" comparisons of your eventual "short list" of appropriate candidate solutions -- and, importantly their vendors (and/or resellers) and the service and support you can expect from them. I hope that you find Focus Comparison Guides helpful in these important efforts.)

Please keep us apprised of your progress, and thanks again.

Ensure you capture your requirements fully, covering call quality, reliability, call volumes, features etc, and put this to tender. Look at how long you want the solution to last - at least 5 years, and create a TCO model (total cost of ownership). Capture rental costs, maintenance costs, call costs etc. Might be a bit of work on a spreadsheet, but it will ultimately allow you to make a logical evaluation. VoIP systems, whether hosted or not can give you the features you need along with the quality you come to expect. Ensure you capture SLAs in you tender, to ensure the vendor can seriously step up to the mark. Try small, medium and large with vendors, and get feedback from similar businesses to your own - internet chat rooms may help, you may get some template tenders which will save loads of time and headaches down the road.... Best of luck.....

Scott, I appreciate the concept of sharing the expertise and Todd stayed very non-biased in his advice. I really appreciate your site and the fact you are actively involved in coaching participants to make it even better.

As a consumer and a subscriber to your site for the exact reasons you created it. I want to point out that I do find value in the responses of the vendors who are offering a specific solution as long as they provide some detail and explanation, ie Todd, Steven, Darr and Paul. The problem I face is that I am the IT dept for this company and that is a big hat to wear. For me to even understand who is out there available to meet the requirements can take considerable research not to mention understanding data, best practices etc.
The vendors who answered here with some detail are still helpful even if it is biased to their product. Information and white papers that are industry specific including valid comparisons would be really helpful. I wouldn't want to discourage their input but focusing on helping is more likely to move me to contact them as a vendor for additional information.

If I were you, I'd approach the solution by asking,

"Does my organization want to manage the phone system inhouse or do we want to have some other organization manage it?"

There are advantages and drawbacks for each choice. An inhouse (aka 'CPE') telephone system will take sightly more oversight. However, your company will be able to purchase applications and upgrade at your own pace.

On the flip-side, a hosted VoIP system won't allow for much customization, and upgrades will be at the whim of the provider. Some providers don't have reach into certain geographical areas. Also, be careful; some providers have auto-renewing contracts and won't allow the customer to have rights to their telephone numbers if they choose to leave.

When comparing quality hosted- and CPE- VoIP solutions for small/medium businesses, the cost is typically a wash. For larger businesses, it makes sense to purchase CPE.

I'll refer you to this article about the different types of VoIP. Maybe it'll help your company. It helped me when we were deciding which path to take.

http://www.myphonescout.com/2010/02/learn-the-flav…-of-voip-today/

There is no sales pitch at this site which is great. Good luck.

Trevor - since you want to have cell phones as part of the end points, you should really look at the Altigen solution.

They offer the ability to register the cell phone as an actual extension, which means if a call makes it through to a cell phone endpoint, that user has most of the capabilities of a regular extension user, including the ability to transfer the call to another user, either extension or outside number, park the call, conference other callers onto the call, place calls from the cellphone but have the caller id appear as the business main line, etc.....

This is probably the best solution for a highly mobile workforce.

For ease of administration, integration and management you want to stay with a windows based IP solution as well.

There are a number of solutions out there, but I think for your use, the Altigen platform would be the best bang for your buck.

Call me if you would like to discuss it further, including the true costs of having an on premise PBX compared to a hosted solution - while the upfront costs may be less with the hosted solution in the long run it is much more expensive for a company of your size.

Darr - 813-527-0180

Look at Star2Star. It is a blended solution that combines the best from the traditional world and blends it with the best from the hosted world. Call quality is exceptional. The Disaster Recovery aspect can not be matched. I have seen several people saying to look at Shoretel, but no traditional style system can give you 100% up time because they are relying on local servers. Star2Star gives you the ability to handle calls regardless of the state of your building without putting your call quality in jeopardy. I am more then happy to answer an questions you have. I have been a sales engineer in the past designing Shoretel, Avaya, and if you go way back Inter-tel. Star2Star is the way to go. 336-245-4701

I would recommend Telesphere. Look on their web site at www.Telesphere.com then call Anna Lugo at (702)581-0901.You will be amazed at this low cost, highly productive solution and no up front capital. It's a one stop solution that will reduce your Telecom expenses.

This can be easily accomplished. Our company gphone.com provides hosted PBX and SIP services using highly redundant Broadsoft switches. If you want to preserver your PBX, we will replace your current phone company using SIP trunking with an Adtran PRI gateway. We can provide an overlay of hosted services which can include standalone Polycom IP phones or direct dial to cell phones. We will put an autoattendant inthe cloud to replace your PBX autoattendant and move the directory to the cloud. Your callers will still be able to direct dial the extensions on your PBX and all of your callers on the old PBX and new PBX can direct dial extensions. If you wish to receive a quote, please call me at 7033504291.

Regards,
Stephen McCarthy
smccarthy@gphone.com

Hi Mark,

My company, Northwinds Contact Solutions, is a provider of hosted call center and hosted office phone. We can meet your requirements for as little as $39 per month per extension. Check out our website at http://www.northwindscontactsolutions.com or call me at 1-800-831-8130.

All the best,

Darren

I can provide information to help you decide which is the best solution.

eross@synertel.com 415-746-1809

www.synertel.com

Call me at 901-603-8771 I can help you by delivering a hosted solution that will address your challenges, and I am an industry expert.