atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones Off site IP phones not working

does anyone know how to make IP phones work off site? I recently had Qwest install a phone system in my aurora co office, when i bought the system the salesperson told me i could use the phones off site. this was an important feature for our organization as we have 6 people that work from home offices. Now that i have the phones (cisco 7940) and i have them offsite they do not work. I called qwest and they said they will work offsite however they will not tell me how to make them work? any ideas

First what system are you using?

Please complete your profile with a web page and experience so that we may know if you are an installer or enduser. You could be dealing with firewall, NAT, or licencse issues. More info is needed.

The first reaction of the evil santa in me was to say "well if they won't tell you, why should we?"

But ceriously, what the hell does that mean?
Did you make them aware of the fact that you needed remote phones as part of the deal? If not why not, and if not why will they not support the product they sold you beyond the innitial sale? This is why you buy phone systems from REAL telephone system dealers.

Two things:
One:
I am sure that they can work off site. The real question is whether you paid to get them set up off site. I would guess probobly not. There is abig differnece between CAN work and WILL work automatically. Some varriables: Are they behind a firewall? Do you have the correct bandwith at the remote sitese? What system do you have?

Are they going to charge you to work off site? Again, in the orriginal contract did you pay to have the offsite phones set up, or just to purchase the phones? Did you pay for the knowledge (or assume you knew it already) to learn how to set up remote IP phones? If you can give us some information we can help more.

Info needed:
1. What telephone system and voice mail
2. What routers do you use
3. What is your internet connection speed
3B. What is the speed at the remote sites
4. Do you have experience with data AND telephones


Steve

Steve

I am working on getting your questions answered:

Others
I am an end user, I clearly explained to the qwest sales person that the phones needed to work offsite, he now tells me that they can be set up to work offsite but this is something qwest does not support, even if I pay them. He said that if I was smart enough I could make them work but has refused to offer any assistance. He did say that I needed to set up IP trunking at one point. We tried to get the xkeepalive turned off but tech support refused. The contract says the phones are not intended to be used offsite however I questioned him about this when getting the phones and he said that the contract did not say they could not be used offsite but that they were not intended to be offsite (something to do with 911)

Thanks for getting back!

In the mean time:
About 911: If someone dials 911 from the IP phone at their house/office off site the 911 dispatcher will send the emergency team to YOUR office, not the place of the emergency. There are ways to get around this, but that (in a nut shell) is what the sales person was refering to.

My advice: Hire someone that has eperience with your system to set this up for you if that is possible. There is more involved than your Quest sales person is leading you to believe.

Steve

You might try programming the phones for a static IP address and the TFTP server.That should do it.

This situation is really a shame. Just another case of the big telco name selling the customer a bill of goods and then running like the wind. They sell products and services that they don't have the staff to support and then turn the situation back on the customer. I see this a lot around here with larger sites where the telco sold customers ISDN-BRI and wouldn't even support the very equipment that they sold them within a few months. Before ISDN, it was Centrex with the same circumstances at the customer level.

It's always something wrong with their "quip-mint".

The typical customer can't afford to sue the phone company for breach of contract, so they just go and try to figure it out on their own. Customers need to remember that equipment sales are not part of the telco's regulated utility status, so they can't rely upon the state to protect or defend them. It's a regular civil case that nobody can afford to fight. People feel "safe" since they think that "the phone company" is regulated, but when buying hardware from them, the same exact rules apply if you bought your hardware at the corner store. The biggest risk that one can take is to buy equipment from a non-incumbent telco's brand name, as is what appears to be the case with this thread. QWest is no different than Joe's TV shop in San Francisco since they aren't a regulated utility in California.

When all is said and done, the customer ends up paying someone else to come in and either correct or replace the system. This results in the customer paying at least twice what should have been paid. The original sale price was grossly inflated to begin with in most cases. The phone companies have deep pockets and can afford to pay the salaries required to employ snake oil salesmen.

It's a shame, and I hate to be the voice of gloom, but you have a bit of work ahead of you. It might not be simple enough to do on your own. Doug, there are dozens of well-trained folks here who will do everything that they can do to help, but the salesman grossly over-simplified the situation to get the sale.

I would suggest that you do your best to flex your muscles with them as much as you can before you lose any more money or let much more time pass. The longer that you let them not uphold their responsibility, the more difficulty you will have in forcing them to face the music.

Avaya dealers around here are doing the same thing.
Ip Office is the do all end all. Ip phones work anywhere there is broad band. Plug in at any Hotel, office, trade show, no problems Mon!!
Just lost long term cust to one of these blowhards.
Being a enginering tech they sometime move huge amounts of data over thier network. They Have IP phone issues and now are being told to install sep cat 6 for data and reserve the old cat 5 for the phones. The network was fine before the IP Office went in.

Would it work if he put vpn router/firewalls at the home offices that connect back to the main office? Establish a vpn tunnel back to the office and it should be transparent to the IP phone, provided the home user has enough upstream bandwith to keep the stream going.