atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Need advice on equipment needs

A while back (probably two years, now) I was able to drill down and find the actual distributor for the actual manufacturer of one of these products, which as I said, all seem to share the same hardware and software, just in different form factor housings. At the time, I was intrigued by the very large number of features, including the Auto Attendant feature, and flexible numbering plan. You'll notice, if you compare these critters, that they all have extension jacks numbered 601 through 6xx, or 801 through 8xx. But according to the technical documentation, you can reprogram the ext's for any three-digit number. I wanted to use one as a "911" simulator for my fire department's education program, but in the mean time I found a cheaper solution.

Back when I was researching these, it became apparent that they had not gotten *all* of the North American features exactly correct: They were programmed to use ZERO, rather than 9, as the escape digit for seizing an outside trunk, and NINE was being used for the local attendant or OPERATOR. This is the way Japanese PBX's are/were generally programmed. When I finally got through to them, via email, I explained this conflict. Lo and behold, a few moths later, the product info on EBAY reflected the changes I had suggested. I can't take credit, because maybe a few other people brought it to their attention, but now they seem to be programmed correctly for North American dial plans.

I would sooner think it _was_ you, Arthur. Not too many would go to that effort to make sure things were right.

At least here on Sundance, we'll all know it was you.

Jim

Well, that's very nice of you to say. I appreciate it.

I have a school district that consists of 4 buildings I want to network them together with these choices of systems I will be adding Sip trunking. Which one of these would be best
Which one of these systems would be easiest to program and configure

Are you certified in either? If not I think the Shoretel (Now Mitel) would be way too much to take on and learn based on what I have seen.

Your web page states "...phone systems (Nortel, Meridian, Avaya, etc.)."

I can only assume by the use of et cetera that you service other system but perhaps are not certified and thus cannot obtain technical support or new parts as an Authorized Dealer?

[Personal Side Note: I have "serviced" many more systems than I have certifications for.]

If you cannot obtain Technical Support for the duration of your warranty period then it really reflects on your company.

A 2100 for 4 buildings? Really you need to be looking at a 9100 minimum. The benefit of the 2100 is that you don't need to be certified to get tech support as it's supposed to be end user friendly (which is a stretch).

I am the original poster in this chain. I have been asked to look at this again. I downloaded the manual for the F208. It says that it is not possible to route an incoming call to another phone number, which is what we need. I still believe a cloud service like Grasshopper is what we are going to need. Anybody have any other suggestions?

Just as an FYI, if you only have one phone line coming into the building, then forwarding externally is not possible. You will need at least 2 call paths for every call that is getting forwarded off site, one coming in and a second going out.

Basically Grasshopper appears to be just a Auto Attendant in the cloud.It would answer the call first then direct callers to another phone number. This might make sense in your situation. I don't know if I would call it a PBX. You still would not be replacing your internal office equipment.

There are a lot of other VoIP services that would do the same thing as Grasshopper, such as Ring Central, Vonage, Nextiva, etc. Most of the other services also offer VoIP to the desktop, which can start to add up in cost if where to replace all your internal handsets. If all that you need is a cloud Auto Attendant, then maybe Grasshopper is a good choice because it looks like that is primarily what they do.

In order for these services to work you would have to "port" over your local number to the service so that the VoIP service can answer the call first. You may need to change the local incoming phone number if that is the number that people call. This could take some time and coordination with your local service provider so that you don't miss any calls.

Are yo talking about transferring the calls "Externally" or "Internally"? Big difference. If you mean internally take Bill's suggestion with an X-Blue X-16 system or something similar...