Trunkline query
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Where do the trunkline numbers configure? Is it from the ISP or from the company PBX? So the company will have 1 main telephone number and 6 or more numbers to handle the calls. Where is it configured? from the ISP side or the company PBX side? what causes the mainline to give a busy tone/message instead of handling more simultaneous calls?
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@justin867 Neither. Your ISP provides Internet and has no relationship to phones. Your PBX uses the trunks that are provides by your telephone carrier. Sure, the PBX has to be configured, but it's just putting in the configuration details from the telephone carrier.
The telephone carrier (e.g. Skyetel, voip.ms, Twilio, etc.) gives you one or more trunks and chooses whether to just allow unlimited concurrent calls (the default) or to impose a limit artificially. That limit is totally something in their software that they add to stop you making more calls. We don't consider services that have that kind of limit to be business class services, that's really a consumer thing like you'd get if you tried to use your ISP as a telephone carrier.
The busy signal and rollover numbers that you describe are an ancient artefact when you avoid VoIP and use a 1990s or older phone system that is built on top of multiple non-VoIP lines that each carry just one call and use an aliasing system to allow one DID to ring to multiple lines. No serious, modern, recent, or business level system has done this is decades. This is a level of terrible phone systems that should not have been happening for a very, very long time.
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If you buy a PBX that does not allow for unlimited calls you could also run into these issues. But there are many free, enterprise PBXs that do unlimited by default so you really shouldn't ever have to worry about that unless you are installing something truly awful, in which case, just replace it with something good and voila, fixed.
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@scottalanmiller Our ISP is our Telco as well.
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@justin867 said in Trunkline query:
@scottalanmiller Our ISP is our Telco as well.
Number one rule of telephony.... never, ever by telephone services from your ISP. Doesn't matter who the company is, your ISP and your telephone provider should never be the same company. In the real world, no one will ever treat you worse and no one else puts you at so much risk.
The function of being an ISP and the function of being a telephone provider are totally unrelated. It would be like using your car dealer as your chef. Can someone who sells cars also cook? Maybe, but the things are unrelated.
But in telephony, it isn't just unrelated, but carries extreme risk. We constantly see problems like you are mentioning because of having done this. By doing so, your ISP knows that you didn't shop around or do any research on price, IT practices, etc. and that they can do anything that they want to do and they are doing so to extort you for more money. Any problems or limitations are just the taking advantage of the fact that they know that they are also your ISP and all of the things that that implies about your relationship with them.
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@justin867 said in Trunkline query:
@scottalanmiller Our ISP is our Telco as well.
Saw this coming as I read the post... now on to Scott's follow up post.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trunkline query:
@justin867 said in Trunkline query:
@scottalanmiller Our ISP is our Telco as well.
The function of being an ISP and the function of being a telephone provider are totally unrelated. It would be like using your car dealer as your chef. Can someone who sells cars also cook? Maybe, but the things are unrelated.
I don't agree with this. But mainly from looking at the past, not currently, generally good available options.
i.e. in the past, internet connection and phone were often available from the same company, and sometimes only from the same company in a given area.Of course with internet delivered VOIP, that's absolutely not the case anymore. VOIP allowed phones to become divorced from a physical location, and while wireless ISP can do the same thing - service is usually less than stellar so most businesses won't do it unless they have no other choice.
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@dashrender said in Trunkline query:
I don't agree with this. But mainly from looking at the past, not currently, generally good available options.
Right. Just the title of the thread informed me that the poster had legacy knowledge.
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@justin867 said in Trunkline query:
Where do the trunkline numbers configure?
Trunk line numbers are a legacy POTS and/or PRI thing.
They do not exist in a VoIP world.
But to directly answer the question, these are controlled and delivered by the phone service provider, in your case the phone side of the ISP.
The use of these "lines" inbound are likely in a huntgroup by the provider. That is how things used to work.
Outbound, the use of any given "line" is a function of your PBX.
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What is the brand/model of your PBX? What type of service are you using (POTS/T1/E1/SIP)?
