RingCentral and Vonage
-
@travisdh1 said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
@360col Are you going to be using only softphones? Because if anyone has a desk phone, I can't even imagine trying to enter a good domain password using a handset.
why? You can use the web interface.
-
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@travisdh1 said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
For context I currently manage a some what "managed cloud PBX" (aka FreePBX) for one of our sub business which is near ~1000 handsets. We are merging with our sister business which has different set of requirements and more fancy features.
Other than the SSO integration with Azure AD/AD, what else is keeping FreePBX at bay?
@360col Are you going to be using only softphones? Because if anyone has a desk phone, I can't even imagine trying to enter a good domain password using a handset.
why? You can use the web interface.
Or via the End Point Manager.
-
Thanks for all the replies.
The FreePBX instant are provided & "managed" by a telco we use and we are potentially moving away from them so that won't stay. We do not currently have access to End Point Manager due to its being a managed FreePBX platform.
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
I'm just arming myself with as much info as I can as I won't be the one making the call on this. Other non technical factors has also come into play so looks like we are going to trial RingCentral.
We are Australian based so Scott's company won't fit into the equation. I also now found out that another of our little subsidiary have been using RingCentral so that gave them some bonus points just because.
I'll report back here if we do go with RingCentral and how things goes.
BTW: It turns out that we don't actually need SSO for any technical reasons at present and it was just thrown in there just because we are on the train to auth everything with Azure AD.
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
We are Australian based so Scott's company won't fit into the equation.
Why? We service Australia just the same as RingCentral. Neither of us are located there, both service there without a problem.
How did we get ruled out, but not RingCentral?
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
BTW: It turns out that we don't actually need SSO for any technical reasons at present and it was just thrown in there just because we are on the train to auth everything with Azure AD.
Azure AD and AD are unrelated. You listed AD, lots and lots of things talk to AD that can't talk to Azure AD, and a few the reverse.
-
What do you anticipate your monthly cost to be with RC?
-
Ring central requires you to buy or lease the phones. They are not included in the advertised price. Since you have Yealinks, you should be fine.
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
-
@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
I wonder if that remains true in Australia where the underlying telephony costs are so much higher.
-
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
I've kinda wondered that briefly from time to time.... I can't really imagine what a person wants to unify with their phone system - short of getting voicemails sent to email, and possibly counting fax to email as part of UC as well. Personally I don't see video chat in the phone arena, it's it's own thing - though obviously doesn't need to be.
-
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
How did we get ruled out, but not RingCentral?
I was asked to review the Ringcentral quote and give my opinion. It seems it has been very much decided to trial RingCentral before it got to me (without me realizing). I did suggest some providers to look at but it doesn't seem like those will be entertained so I gave my 2 cents and left it at that for now.
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
UC is a scam,...
Yeah I know. Higher up are drinking the cool aid with the whole 'presence' thing. Office365 integrated calling (via Telstra) were looked at and discarded due to cost and wasn't going to work for our use case.
Let not even go into the 'magic quadrant' crap! (hint it was brought up).
Feel free to continue the discussions. However my original purpose is concluded. Aka I wouldn't have bothered had I known what I know now of the 'requirements'. Dam its frustrating at times trying to do your best and get hampered by arbitrary things.
-
@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Ring central requires you to buy or lease the phones. They are not included in the advertised price. Since you have Yealinks, you should be fine.
Yes I know. I have put in my 2 cents about recommending we keep using Yealinks from a performance & price angle. We currently use the T46S as our standard.
-
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
I've kinda wondered that briefly from time to time.... I can't really imagine what a person wants to unify with their phone system - short of getting voicemails sent to email, and possibly counting fax to email as part of UC as well. Personally I don't see video chat in the phone arena, it's it's own thing - though obviously doesn't need to be.
Isn't UC just a package deal, locking you in to one vendor with several products?
-
@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
We are not putting everything in initially. So would only be a small deployment. pricing seems ok-ish on the quote.
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
I wonder if that remains true in Australia where the underlying telephony costs are so much higher.
If you have a high enough volume than pricing is reasonable enough. Telstra here charges approx $35 - $40 a month for a 'landline / PSTN' so that's what everyone trying to price to.
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Dam its frustrating at times trying to do your best and get hampered by arbitrary things.
Yeah that happens to all of us at time for sure.
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
We are not putting everything in initially. So would only be a small deployment. pricing seems ok-ish on the quote.
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
I wonder if that remains true in Australia where the underlying telephony costs are so much higher.
If you have a high enough volume than pricing is reasonable enough. Telstra here charges approx $35 - $40 a month for a 'landline / PSTN' so that's what everyone trying to price to.
You can't compare the costs of PSTN to that of users, etc on a PBX, at least not that I can see. Unless you're telling me that everyone has their own landline now, and you're getting hit for $35-40 for each user already...
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@JaredBusch said in RingCentral and Vonage:
In the 1000 user range I would expect RC to be $10/user or less.
We are not putting everything in initially. So would only be a small deployment. pricing seems ok-ish on the quote.
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
I wonder if that remains true in Australia where the underlying telephony costs are so much higher.
If you have a high enough volume than pricing is reasonable enough. Telstra here charges approx $35 - $40 a month for a 'landline / PSTN' so that's what everyone trying to price to.
That seems really excessive to me.
I don't know Twilio very well as a company, but their pricing seems way better. $2.50 per DID and .02 per minute. You'd have to get a current phone bill and do a little math, but Twilio's sort of pricing would work out better many times. Even if you are paying someone else to admin the system.
-
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
I've kinda wondered that briefly from time to time.... I can't really imagine what a person wants to unify with their phone system - short of getting voicemails sent to email, and possibly counting fax to email as part of UC as well. Personally I don't see video chat in the phone arena, it's it's own thing - though obviously doesn't need to be.
It's not, video is just a native part of all voice systems. No one uses it, but every system has had it for decades. Now they present it like it's special and call it "UC" and try to convince people that everyone else hasn't always had it.
-
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Yeah I know. Higher up are drinking the cool aid with the whole 'presence' thing.
Phone systems have presence. UC isn't presence. Just call everything UC and the problem is solved. Everything has texting, presence, video, vmail, vmail to email, etc. Literally everyone.
-
@jmoore said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@Dashrender said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@scottalanmiller said in RingCentral and Vonage:
@360col said in RingCentral and Vonage:
Also looking at the next level that involve muti-country and all that "UC" stuff (to some degree, more like using a VOIP App).
UC is a scam, like UTMs. Sounds fancy, but really has no business purpose. Avoid UC. Don't avoid UC platforms, every phone platform is called UC now. But don't use any UC features, it's just stupid. Phones are phones, trying to make them into everything else is going to be a terrible experience for the business and cost a lot of money while making things that have long ago been solved into problems again.
I've kinda wondered that briefly from time to time.... I can't really imagine what a person wants to unify with their phone system - short of getting voicemails sent to email, and possibly counting fax to email as part of UC as well. Personally I don't see video chat in the phone arena, it's it's own thing - though obviously doesn't need to be.
Isn't UC just a package deal, locking you in to one vendor with several products?
Not really. It's a buzzword that literally means nothing.
