
Small business VoIP phone system setup tutorial - amingilani
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AReCMwdziDg&list=PLkVbIsAWN2luXh1H9ug50IocztUTTlZ6p
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ericcholis
I'm currently evaluating this space for a mixed-use 100 employee company.
We're an e-commerce company who deals with B2C customer service, B2C/B2B
inside sales, and C2B where we purchase from the customer.

We currently have a cloud-based PBX system that is okay-ish. No onsite
hardware outside of Polycom phones. But, it's not very flexible. Our sales and
service teams could benefit greatly from having access to customer data before
picking up the call. Easier api-based access to call logs and recordings would
be amazing as well. Tighter integration with other messaging channels would be
great as well.

Where I'm lost is making the leap from our traditional phone system to
something better. Twilio Flex looks great, but I'm not sure if it's overkill.
I admittedly haven't taken the time to understand the entire stack (SIP,
softswitches, IP-PBX, etc..). Perhaps I'm missing something, but it feels like
there's a gap in the market between the a la carte Twilio services and a
traditional PBX.

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seomint
Crosstalk Solutions also have an excellent YouTube series on how to install
and configure FreePBX v14.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTtql5lMeKk&list=PL1fn6oC5nd...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTtql5lMeKk&list=PL1fn6oC5ndU8tezrQ1pnPSEpa_m0w8LOW)

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tapvt
I’ve just built out a fairly complex PBX solution for a client using asterisk
and Cisco SPA5xx series phones.

I have to admit that, coming from a non-telephony dev background, there was a
bit of a learning curve.

Looking forward to watching this when time allows.

~~~
amingilani
What did you use to bridge the knowledge gap?

I've been trying to figure out Asterisk since I was a teenager, but never
found a great resource. They used to call themselves Apache for telephone
around that time, but since then, I've become a full-stack dev and I still
don't understand Asterisk. I suppose It's probably because I haven't been
giving it enough time, myself.

~~~
xorcist
I did a bit of consulting around Asterisk when it was younger and one of the
strengths was how easy it was to get started. There's a bit of terminology to
it, and the dialplan language is arcane to put it mildly, but it's all very
straightfoward. The comparison with Apache is apt, with equivalents to CGI and
everything.

Bascially the best way to get started is to just install it and use
asterisk.conf from the sample directory to get started (not the other files).

You'll probably be running SIP to both your phones and your uplink so create a
new sip.conf. Read the corresponding wiki page at voip-info.org for syntax,
and look at the sample file for reference (it's way too complicated to use as-
is).

Then write a dialplan in extensions.conf. That's the description of how calls
should be processed (something like "when a local phone dials 3xx, call a
local phone by that name", "when a local phone dials a longer string, place an
outgoing call"). Again, check the wiki and sample files for examples. Don't be
put off by the language, which uses line numbers for code.

That's enough to get started. The O'Reilly book is really, really good should
you wish to invest in it. There are one-click installers and web interfaces
available too, I haven't used those but they're probably better should you
wish to have something more product-like. There's not as much small scale
consulting work in the PBX space as it used to be since mobile phones took
over. Most work is around call centers but it can still be challenging and
fun.

~~~
secabeen
Yep, just do it. That said, if you want some abstraction, putting FreePBX in
between you and Asterisk does give a lot of ease of install, and you can
always read the conf files that FreePBX creates when it configures asterisk
based on web commands.

On the uplink side, I push all my calls through voip.ms. I pay per minute
inbound and outbound (I think it's about $0.01/min, which seems expensive, but
then there's no crazy $30/mo crap). DIDs (aka inbound phone numbers) cost $2-4
month, depending if you need e911. Calls are handed off via Asterisk's IAX2
protocol, although SIP works too.

We use Polycom phone hardware, which has been really solid for over 10 years,
and which has great call quality, given Polycom's experience in conference
room phones.

If you want to get hardcore with digital lines from your telco, you can use a
used cisco device as a media gateway for under $2k.

My PBX is just a VM on our infrastructure like any other.

~~~
amingilani
Thank you! One more question: What kind of hardware would I require to connect
my server to the plain old telephone system? In my country, we don't have VOIP
gateways for consumer use.

~~~
secabeen
So, assuming your phone network is compatible with the US POTS (Plain old
telephone service) system, here's what you need. Analog interfaces for phones
run in two modes: FXO or FXS. An FSX adapter, is a device that you connect a
phone device to. It generates dial tone. That's not what you need.

What you need is an FXO device (sometimes called a channel bank). That is a
device that emulates a phone device, and which consumes dial tone. Many
devices sold as FXO gateways are expensive. If you have a real server, you can
get an FXO PCI card from Digium for some hundreds of dollars, but that's
expensive too.

Some cheap FXS devices can also operate in FXO mode. The cheapest one appears
to be the Grandtream HT813 for $89: [https://www.voipsupply.com/grandtream-
ht813-gateway-ata](https://www.voipsupply.com/grandtream-ht813-gateway-ata)

~~~
amingilani
Thank you so much! I've already gotten started installing Asterisk and playing
around. This has been most helpful!

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josecapurro
Blink is an excellent softphone, too!

[http://icanblink.com/](http://icanblink.com/)

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jaboutboul
Gotta love Rossman.

A very atypical video series for him, yet still so enlightening.

~~~
amingilani
I agree. I feel as though VoIP and phone system setup for small business isn't
as popular as it should be. I for one am very interested in running a private
SIP server for my home use on something like a Raspberry Pi.

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cimm
As am Twilio as the backend with Linphone as softphone client to get started.
Easy enough to set up and seems to work fine. Only problem is the lack of push
notifications on iOS, inbound phone calls only work when Linphone is the
foreground app. Android even has a build in SIP client.

~~~
_JamesA_
Acrobits Softphone[1] and Groundwire[2] support iOS push notifications. I have
found they work much better than Bria[3].

[1]: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acrobits-
softphone/id314192799](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acrobits-
softphone/id314192799)

[2]: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acrobits-
groundwire/id37850308...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/acrobits-
groundwire/id378503081)

[3]: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bria-mobile-voip-
softphone/id1...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bria-mobile-voip-
softphone/id1236194368)

~~~
cimm
Thanks. Linephone does support push notifications, problem is I don't have a
way to tell Twilio to send push notifications since it's not "their" mobile
client. Any idea if you can send push notification to an iOS app that isn't
yours? As in: Twilio receives a call, how does it (or my server) send a push
notification to to, say, Groundwire?

~~~
_JamesA_
Acrobits registers the SIP account(s) through their server when push
notifications are enabled.

~~~
cimm
I tried Acrobits Softphone today and it works! Thanks for the help!

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mentos
What existing startups have made this a one-click solution? Are there any?

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travbrack
You could argue that any cloud PBX does this. Ringcentral, 8x8 etc. You just
download their softphone preconfigured and login, or use the web one.

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secabeen
The problem is, all of these services upsell you on "unlimited" calls for
$20/mo, when all you really make is $10/mo in calls. The profit that runs
their business is right there.

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toomuchtodo
Isn’t your time worth more than $10/hr?

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secabeen
I don't understand what you're asking. Of course it is. If you just want cheap
telephone service in your home, or even a somewhat featureful VOIP PBX for
your 1-2 employee small business, then the cloud solutions are best.

If your goal is to learn VOIP, or you have a larger business, you're now
looking at $200+/month for 10+ users. That starts being real money.

Even if it's just a personal setup, and it takes you say 4 hours to setup a
per-minute voice setup, $10 less per month is $120/year, and a setup like this
could easily last 3 years, now you're looking at $360 savings for 4 hours
work. Not too bad at an hourly rate, and that's valuing the learning and fun
of setting up such a system at $0.

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N0RMAN
Have a look at 3cx! Free for basic usage, great mobile apps and very easy
deployments.

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Blackstone4
Alternatively to connect the company, you could have a shared contact list
synced up with Exchange or Gmail with everyone's numbers and use WhatsApp
voice calling or if you are feeling generous give everyone an iPhone and use
FaceTime Audio....boom that way you reduce setup time by immense amounts...

~~~
orev
Some companies (the smart ones) don’t want to turn over all their internal
data to giant companies who’s primary business model is to collect and sell
data.

Also, the solution you propose would be a nightmare to manage.

~~~
Blackstone4
Does Microsoft collect and sell data for their Exchange product?

It's just one option for a small business. If there's less than 10 of you, it
would be an easy option with minimal fuss as along as you can have a couple of
tech-savy admins. Agreed that when you get large it be harder to manage.

To be honest, I felt like you read my comment and intrepreted it in the most
critical way you could. For different situations there are different
appropriate solutions. I was just mentioning a narrow use case. Horses for
courses.

