New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Phone system
DataIdeas-Josh
Member, Patron Provider
in Help
I am looking for a phone system where I can have a small caller tree but also something with call recording. (I have check the "wire tap" laws for the state of Texas) and the rules that need to follow for that.
Being I don't expect lots of phone calls trying to figure out the best option for this without spending a bunch of money. Let alone it would be nice to have calls that can forward to my cell phone.
Thank you for your time and help with this.
Comments
Asterisk
and $200 for an intern to write 1000 lines of config
@DataIdeas-Josh you trying to branch out into the 1-900 side hustle?
Highly recommend Openphone if you want a hosted solution. Has recording, custom answer messages (text to speech), forwarding, etc.
haha,. Na. Just trying to give a phone number to clients if have questions and also for TXNet.
Asterisk server and/or FreePBX. FreeSwitch. Etc.
I used to use OpenVBX before Twilio updated their API and it was no longer supported. There are some forks available that work with current APIs but it's pretty much dunzo now.
I have a phone number right now that I will need to get ported. But I don't know a darn thing when it comes to these phone systems.
I don't mind learning but I don't know where to even start.
@HalfEatenPie I've heard of FreePBX but what I don't understand is don't I need somewhere I can put my number still?
It appears its app only? Do they have the option for "land lines"?
Don't quote me on this as I never went too deep into it beyond OpenVBX and having Twilio handle it all.
But you need a SIP trunking vendor who'll handle the phone number management. Your Asterisk server will handle the VoIP and the "menu options".
https://www.zoiper.com/
I think I'm using voip.ms as the VoIP vendor. But you can also host your own Asterisk server, get a phone number from a SIP vendor. Done.
Groundwire is also pretty neat https://www.acrobits.net/sip-client-ios-android/
3CX + Twilio.
I do a lot of VoIP.
Unless you go with a fully managed solution, you'll need a few things:
A PBX (like FreePBX or 3CX) - this is the server that actually routes your calls, where you can create extensions, IVRs and voice mailboxes.
A SIP trunk provider (like Twilio) - this is what you connect your PBX to in order for it to make and/or receive calls on the traditional "telephone network". There are hundreds of carriers out there. You can mix and match these based on location, price, services offered, etc...
A SIP client/softphone/hardware IP phone (like Groundwire or Yealink phones) - this will be your actual "phone" device on which you will place and/or receive calls.
FreePBX is great, but there's a bit of a learning curve and troubleshooting asterisk is very annoying. However, when you've got it setup, it's great, free and dependable.
For 1 extension and couple of phone numbers (often referred to as DIDs), it's a good setup.
Don't be fooled though, FreePBX is extremely powerful and can easily handle hundreds of extensions, trunks, menu's, etc... Also, it's free - like, actually $0.
Groundwire is an excellent mobile app and there are a number of great physical IP phones, like Yealink, Fanvil, Sangoma, etc...
If you want the least hassle, and something that "just works", look at 3CX.
It isn't free, but is reasonably priced, comes with it's own applications for mobile and desktop and it's super simple to setup compared to FreePBX.
My recommend trunk providers would be Twilio on inbound (huge infra, shouldn't be going anywhere and your number will be safe), Flowroute or Telnyx on outbound (better calling rates).
If you don't want to bother with setting anything up at all, there's a number of services for ~$10/month that give you a number, call rates, and apps and you're up in minutes.
Happy to help over DM
Edit: typos, etc...
I love your writeup. This was an area I've had a very narrow exposure into and something I wanted to actively explore further on once I had more free time (which is quite the premium in this day and age). I appreciate this knowledge dump.
I make my living in telecom. I'd second about everything @tjn says.
Things I'd add: If you're not into point & click and want to be more reproducible, bare Asterisk may be more your thing than FreePBX. The learning curve is steeper, but the repeatability is better. Out of box, it's not crazy to get something basic going and you can learn as you go, as long as you're not afraid of the edit-config-file/reload/test cycle.
voip.ms does hosted PBX with low (for hosted PBX) rates. We offer hosted PBX too, but we're definitely not LE market.
If you're going to run your own PBX, you can get super low SIP trunking rates from many carriers. Some want a minimum monthly commit (Bandwidth.com, Commio, etc), others are happy to work with anyone regardless of size (Anveo, BulkVS, etc).
The cesspool of the internet will attack the bejezus out of your Asterisk implementation. fail2ban at a minimum is a must. Better to protect behind an SBC that can handle the abuse like kamailio.
For best reliability, you want to select an incoming (Origination) provider that has an interconnection mix that will be reliable for your callers. Here in Canada, Endstream does a good job there as they have Bell and Telus interconnections for origination. They price by inbound trunk where some providers price by the minute. That's something to weigh when you're deciding who to use.
Outgoing (Termination), you can pick and mix on a call-by-call basis. If you're doing enough volume for it to be worth it, you might set up a least-cost routing system amongst multiple providers with fallback to more expensive providers if a call can't get through on a less expensive route. We do that for every outgoing call. You don't need to terminate with the same provider you're originating with.
Some providers support fax (T.38), some do not, some do, but only over certain routes. If fax matters to you, definitely dig into support with the carriers you're working with. Device-wise, the Grandstream HT812 has been our rock for T.38-supporting adapters.
If you need SMS, then Telnyx is really hard to beat.
There are many producers of physical phones out there. We've had great price/performance from Fanvil devices, with the V64 being the one exception (having reliability issues with that model to date - the rest of their lineup has been solid, even others in the V-series). Grandstream and Snom devices have been rock solid for us as well.
If you want a simple menu and few extensions, you can use https://sonetel.com/en/
One party consent, same as me.
Dont waste your time hosting your own solution.
Just setup a IVR with voip.ms
Really appreciate you and @tjn's posts.
So I don't know how simple or basic this is, but what would you recommend as a complete softphone solution that supports not only incoming and outgoing calls but also SMS?
From my interpretation it seems like you're suggesting Telnyx with Groundwire
If you want it cheap, multitel
Use VOIP services from voip.ms or anveo.com.
They were pretty easy to use & affordable.
If you want something easy, voip.ms, anveo.com. You port your number to them and then register with your SIP client to their server.
If you fancy setting up and running your own PBX, then few beat bulkvs.com for pricing. But you need to know your stuff with them, they provide some docs but don't expect them to hold your hand while you're setting it up.
Do you just want to handle incoming SMS or do want the ability to answer SMS as well?
Ability to answer as well. Not only SMS but also handle incoming or outgoing calls.
Currently it's just voip.ms behind ZoiPer but... Well... it leaves a bit to be desired.
This isn't to take away from Josh's post but I figured I'd ask
Google Voice free is nice. We use it with an ObiTalk box, the box allows you to plug in normal phones. It will also forward calls to your phone, send text messages, screen calls etc. Also the ObiTalk box works with other major VOIP providers. I was going to link our ObiTalk box we have but it just reached end of life.
dialpad.com
We've been using using voip.ms for (10+?) years with no problems (other than a couple ddos attacks). Voicemail, extensions, sms, fax, multiple pops, great support - it's all there
But now I'm setting up freepbx with anveo direct as rates are sooo much cheaper, and I like to learn new things.
If you are just looking for something that works out of the box, voip.ms won't let you down. If u like to tinker and are looking for unbeatable rates go with bulkvs or anveodirect on a pbx
Check out https://vitalpbx.com/ - which I actually forgot to mention in my earlier post.
It seems to do SMS quite well and also has a generous free version based on Asterisk.
It looks like an easier to use version of FreePBX that I'm currently trialing.
I know DialPad partners with T-Mobile and they are very nice. You can set up a virtual attendant and can access it from really any device. Depending on the amount of lines I believe there is also call recording as well as Voice to Text transcribing.
They are one of the few I found that are compatible with Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS
@DataIdeas-Josh inboxed you some Info about Hosted PBX's ect
there hundreads of options, its the matter of finding the one that suits your business needs the best
Mobile soft phone is tough because both Apple and Google now require incoming calls to use push notifications. We published our own soft phone to handle that. I think Groundwire sends everything through their own SIP proxy to make that possible with your own pbx but I'm not super familiar with their app to be certain. We find the best experience for our customers is to just provide our own app rather than have them buy something else and go through a bunch of setup. If you go that route, customizing linphone is probably the lowest barrier to entry. You can do that yourself. BC will also do that for you for a few thousand if you want the just works experience.
I don't know of any generic app that can text via telnyx, but their api is super sensible and easy to work with if you have some experience in that domain. Asterisk and Kamailio can both be made to interact with them, but that's on the steeper side of the SIP learning curve. Twilio is more expensive but they publish an app that may do what you want out of the box.
At least with telnyx, you can use them for sms and another provider for voice origination. It's a killer combo for pricing and reliability. Twilio may support that too. We stopped using them years ago because of pricing so I don't know off the top of my head.
We use telnyx for sms, primarily endstream and iristel for origination, and endstream, iristel, anveo, commio, and hail-Mary fallback to voip.ms for termination with a mix of a few other smaller carriers when it makes sense. I think the message there is that if you're setting up your own infra, you can pick and mix service where it makes sense.
Thanks for that. Good to hear. Yeah I've seen solutions like Line2 and similar and I originally wanted to roll my own solution. I know at one point I was using OpenVBX, Google Voice, and my own mobile number and (while on a trip to Japan) accidentally created an infinite recursive loop of call forwarding rules that... drained my entire Twilio account within a few minutes (I mean, for one person 20 dollars lasts forever in this space but I was definitely very lucky).
Was definitely a fun time.