Building a new phone system the open source way

 

My day job company has a phone system that was purchased and built right before Abraham Lincoln was born.

From talking to some people, he might actually have been one of the people who actually WROTE the software for the phone system.

After much debate, and much research, the company decided to purchase a new phone system.  We had a few requirements for this phone system:

• Ability to have multiple inbound queues
• Ability to have the phone not ring if you are on a call, but still leave you in the queue once your current call is done
• Ability to have your voicemail sent to your email
• Ability to forward your phone to an outside number if you are unavailable or out of the office.
• Ability to pick your desk phone up, take it anywhere in the world and plug it into a network port and plug it in and have the same phone experience wherever you are that you have sitting at your desk, including getting your phone calls at your regular desk direct dial number.

I looked at many possible phone systems, from Avaya, and from Mitel, and from Shoretel, and a couple open source Voice Over IP solutions, one called Asterisk, and another, built on Asterisk called Elastix.

In the end, after much discussion, we decided to go with the Elastix phone system and Polycom IP 430 phones.

I’m still waiting for my new T1 to be installed in my office, but I have the phone system currently set up in my office and working for station to station internal calls.

I also have it set up so that you can go somewhere (for example) my home office and plug the phone in and get phone calls.

One neat feature is that all incoming faxes come into your email as a PDF file.  It’s a really nice feature.

If you are looking at a new phone system, I strongly recommend you look into Asterisk or Elastix.  They are both ultra configurable and flexible.

Compared to the other alternatives, it cost us at least 50% less than the other alternatives, and I think in the end it will provide us with a much better phone experience.

Technorati Tags: Asterisk,Elastix,Mitel,Shoretel,Avaya,VOIP,Open Source Telephony