Best PBX Software?
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm willing to pay for an autoconfiguration utility that will program my phones to basically become dumb devices like old digital phones, and have all the brains be in the PBX itself - in a corporate environment, do I really need the phone to have more local smarts?
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
Autoconfiguration is not hard, but it will be manual for the level of configuration that you want. Even 3CX could not do all the things you want without manual configuration.
But once you setup the config files, you only need replicate them for the new extension when you add users so that work is not hard.
yep, and I had that working before I bailed on it.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
what is multiway calling? Does that have the SIP trunks connected directly to a phone? can a single trunk be connected to more than one phone?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
what is multiway calling? Does that have the SIP trunks connected directly to a phone? can a single trunk be connected to more than one phone?
A single phone can connect to more than one trunk (often used to connect to multiple PBXs) and a single trunk can connect to more than one phone.
When using the PBX, it is a conference room / bridge. But we have customers who demand to do it from their phones instead of the PBX. I have no idea why, makes no sense to me. None that do it with more than one SIP trunk, though.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
what is multiway calling? Does that have the SIP trunks connected directly to a phone? can a single trunk be connected to more than one phone?
A single phone can connect to more than one trunk (often used to connect to multiple PBXs) and a single trunk can connect to more than one phone.
When using the PBX, it is a conference room / bridge. But we have customers who demand to do it from their phones instead of the PBX. I have no idea why, makes no sense to me. None that do it with more than one SIP trunk, though.
LOL - how do they even know that type of thing can be done? Seems weird!
How do you conference/bridge with a single SIP trunk?
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
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@Dashrender said:
How do you conference/bridge with a single SIP trunk?
What do you mean? A SIP trunk doesn't (usually) limit you to a certain number of inbound or outbound calls. At least not in my experience. I think Vitelity had a soft limit of 10 but you could lift that by talking to support.
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
Pretty much this. It was a feature our legacy phones had that users wanted. They wanted it to be near instantaneous and didn't want to have to call someone and transfer them to a conference line.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
How do you conference/bridge with a single SIP trunk?
What do you mean? A SIP trunk doesn't (usually) limit you to a certain number of inbound or outbound calls. At least not in my experience. I think Vitelity had a soft limit of 10 but you could lift that by talking to support.
Ok - that sounds familiar - I'm still pretty brand new to the workings of SIP trunks. I'm so used to TDM.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
Pretty much this. It was a feature our legacy phones had that users wanted. They wanted it to be near instantaneous and didn't want to have to call someone and transfer them to a conference line.
This is how any Yealink phone works by default with any Asterisk PBX
- I am on a call
- I want to conference on someone else
- I push the conference button
- I dial the ext of the person I wish to add
a. via button or dial - I wait for them to answer
- i push conference again and we have a conference call
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
Pretty much this. It was a feature our legacy phones had that users wanted. They wanted it to be near instantaneous and didn't want to have to call someone and transfer them to a conference line.
You mean for more than 2 or 3 extra callers, right? I thought Yeahlink phones with FreePBX could conference up to three (the phone who's phone it was and two others) just like legacy phone systems. When you wanted to have three or more other parties, you had to use a conference.
This was on my problem list, but not a show stopper since it didn't happen that frequently.
Again - why can't asterisk based systems do this out of the box like legacy systems? This seems like such a HUGE miss. -
@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
Pretty much this. It was a feature our legacy phones had that users wanted. They wanted it to be near instantaneous and didn't want to have to call someone and transfer them to a conference line.
This is how any Yealink phone works by default with any Asterisk PBX
- I am on a call
- I want to conference on someone else
- I push the conference button
- I dial the ext of the person I wish to add
a. via button or dial - I wait for them to answer
- i push conference again and we have a conference call
Right, that's why I mentioned it as a feature and one of the reasons we went to Yealink.
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@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
Pretty much this. It was a feature our legacy phones had that users wanted. They wanted it to be near instantaneous and didn't want to have to call someone and transfer them to a conference line.
This is how any Yealink phone works by default with any Asterisk PBX
- I am on a call
- I want to conference on someone else
- I push the conference button
- I dial the ext of the person I wish to add
a. via button or dial - I wait for them to answer
- i push conference again and we have a conference call
Sure, this works for calls up to three total - but if you need to bring in 4 people, you can't do this.
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@Dashrender said:
You mean for more than 2 or 3 extra callers, right? I thought Yeahlink phones with FreePBX could conference up to three (the phone who's phone it was and two others) just like legacy phone systems. When you wanted to have three or more other parties, you had to use a conference.
This was on my problem list, but not a show stopper since it didn't happen that frequently.
Again - why can't asterisk based systems do this out of the box like legacy systems? This seems like such a HUGE miss.Because I have used zero legacy systems that let you conference more than 3 people at once. Users always get around it by joining in multiple conference calls together from various extensions.
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
It's one thing to use a stand alone VOIP phone with a direct connected SIP trunk, but I don't know any corporations that operate their phone systems that way.
So don't configure that for use. It's not a negative, it's just an extra feature.
Your phone talks to the PBX over a standard SIP trunk.
Right. I thought that he was talking about the DND on the Phone feature.
I was - I am saying I want the phone to be completely dumb - all functions should be passed along to the PBX - which I was definitely working toward.
I had managed to disable most of the default configurations. You're right it's not a negative, just a feature I don't need.
You'd be amazing how many customers, in the same vein, demand that the phone do multiway calling and refuse to let the PBX do it.
This was a big feature of the Yealink phones that I installed that was required. They worked great at doing this but people complained that when they wanted to do more then 3 people on a call they couldn't just add them in.... I setup conference lines just for that instance.
What advantage do you get conferencing through the endpoint over conferencing through the PBX?
Is it like my DND example, doing it through the PBX is not as simple as just hitting line two, then conference/bridge?
Pretty much this. It was a feature our legacy phones had that users wanted. They wanted it to be near instantaneous and didn't want to have to call someone and transfer them to a conference line.
This is how any Yealink phone works by default with any Asterisk PBX
- I am on a call
- I want to conference on someone else
- I push the conference button
- I dial the ext of the person I wish to add
a. via button or dial - I wait for them to answer
- i push conference again and we have a conference call
Sure, this works for calls up to three total - but if you need to bring in 4 people, you can't do this.
You're legacy system does this? I've only ever seen 3-way calling in a feature list not instant conferences. FreePBX does instant/on-demand conferences as well you just have to setup the extension.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
You mean for more than 2 or 3 extra callers, right? I thought Yeahlink phones with FreePBX could conference up to three (the phone who's phone it was and two others) just like legacy phone systems. When you wanted to have three or more other parties, you had to use a conference.
This was on my problem list, but not a show stopper since it didn't happen that frequently.
Again - why can't asterisk based systems do this out of the box like legacy systems? This seems like such a HUGE miss.Because I have used zero legacy systems that let you conference more than 3 people at once. Users always get around it by joining in multiple conference calls together form various extensions.
This assumes you have multiple people inside the company being involved.
What if the owner wants to conference with 4 other people that are all outside of the company? Conference bridge is required, or the SIP trunk has to be terminated directly on the phone, then that phone can do a conference locally.
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@JaredBusch said:
Because I have used zero legacy systems that let you conference more than 3 people at once. Users always get around it by joining in multiple conference calls together from various extensions.
Our Mitel system allows us to conference 4 additional besides the one who's phone it is. a total of 5 people.
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
Because I have used zero legacy systems that let you conference more than 3 people at once. Users always get around it by joining in multiple conference calls together from various extensions.
Our Mitel system allows us to conference 4 additional besides the one who's phone it is. a total of 5 people.
So one more than what I said I have experienced with legacy systems.
Either way, yes conference bridges are the correct solution and always should have been, but it was an add on feature that legacy PBX providers charged outrageous prices to get.
So it sounds like Mitel tweaked their PBX to alleviate the issue to some degree instead of just opening up conference bridges.
With Asterisk, you can have a completely open conference bridge no need to dial special codes or require name announcements. So if you want external people on it just transfer them into it and then call in yourself.
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I guess I misread your 3 to mean 3 including the caller in your office.
In any regards, why the need to force people to a conference bridge? Does it somehow make the system more secure? use less resources?
Why offer less than what anyone else offers?
Often I'll agree with a specific work flow change - but this is one place where I just see the technology forcing us to something someone has decided to dictate as the "Proper Way." But isn't the real end goal of our technology to provide solutions for the way people do or want to work?
Oh and Mitel didn't charge us extra for the ability to conference 4 or 5 people using the endpoint, that's just part of the base package.
