VOIP etc > Voice Over IP - VOIP > VOIP Tech Chat > Recommendation for local church? - 4 lines

Recommendation for local church? - 4 lines

The most important question you need to ask yourself is if you want to become their 'phone guy' and handle any problem that ever comes up with their new system or not.

Once you've determined that, we can give you more relevant recommendations.

For your secondary building - is the electrical on it's own connection or does it come from the main building?
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reply to digiblur

reply to Trev

reply to Mango

reply to digiblur
Ditto Trev's commend about ongoing support.

We had a Vonage line in at our church for long distance to supplement a small number of POTS lines. Eventually we removed it because the staff had so much trouble with outages. That's not even a BYOD service, but it speaks to the question of reliability. A simple VOIP setup will not be as reliable as POTS.

Is your staff willing to tolerate this, and do you want them spending their time dealing with phone issues, in order to save some bucks?

One of the Key Factors for any VOIP setup is the internet connection and the router. If setup correctly, VOIP can be just as reliable as a POTS line. I ported four numbers to Anveo earlier this year. So far, I have had no issues with the service. Of course, all the equipment is connected to a large UPS.

I used to do Vonage installations and service calls. One of the first calls I did, many years ago, was to troubleshoot an issue with poor voice quality. I arrived and found out they were trying to use the Vonage service over a Hughes Satellite connection. In all the calls trying to figure out what was wrong, no one had ever asked for any details about their internet connection.

reply to digiblur
1. carrier: CallCentric - but only port main publicized number
2. for the "rollover" lines, just get new DIDs from CallCentric in your area (cheaper than porting)
3. consider keeping 1 POTS line for fax unless your fax needs are not very serious - if you do not need fax to work 100% every time, then switch fax number to CallCentric (and don't forget that CallCentric can receive faxes and send them as email)
4. you will need an ATA that can handle 1-4 lines depending on what you do - solution: Grandstream HT704 - boom you are done - interconnect into the existing telephones and system
5. just make sure you do in fact have enough bandwidth - however, since you said calls are light usage, may not be an issue - which raises the question - you need 4 lines for light usage?

please save your church some money and get them onto VOIP

also get their computers off Windows and onto something like Ubuntu Linux, it will reduce their need to churn hardware over for "new" versions of Windows and will reduce IT/antivirus expenses long term

good luck to you and g/d bless

I just completed a project for my church which sounds almost identical to what you are considering. I considered going voip, but in the end decided to go with a NEC DSX 40 key system. Phone lines are provided to the church via Comcast and delivered to the key system as POTS. I'm using SIP trunks and Asterisk at home, but just felt doing voip over the Internet would not be reliable enough for a business. I would describe my home voip experience as "cellphone like." Infrequent outages, but enough to potentially be a problem for me as the church "phone guy." The DSX has worked out very well for the church and for me in terms of it being problem free post install. I put in 3 CO lines, a fax line and 6 feature phone stations for about $1200. NEC provides good training and documentation and my wholesale vendor was there to provide post sales technical support, if I had needed any.

reply to kaila
I am looking for a voip solution too let me know if you find any thing that works.

There are many good VoIP solutions. Post your requirements in a new thread and we'll try to help you.

reply to digiblur
Fully understand the thing with supporting the thing. No ubuntu, don't have that much time for them nor do I want to deal with them not being able to use their programs. But I never really had to deal with many issues, I guess Voicepulse had me spoiled.

I've been around the VoIP block a few times... Packet8, Vonage, Voicepulse(5+ yrs), Broadvoice, Voipo, FWD, and many more. I have a SPA2000, SPA3000 and SPA841 just sitting in the drawer.

Blast from the past:
»[Equipment] My solution for in QOS for VOIP
»[Sipura] Make your Sipura Speak! - GetSipura Guide

Now back to the thread... yes 4 lines light usage. 2 for the front office for voice. 1 for FAX. The 4th like I stated in the OP, is all the way in the back building not attached to the main church building. It's a food bank type thing some of the days out of the week.

My original thinking was the SPA2000 would run the front two lines or whatever ATA I would get from a provider. The SPA3000 would go in the back if and when I could get internet to it. Then keep the FAX line.

Just working through the numbers as I said I've been out of the VoIP scene for about 4 yrs or so and I'm sure a lot has changed. So any additional recommendations are much appreciated. Thanks for the ones so far, it will give me a start on my research.

reply to lightspeedpr

reply to digiblur
Any other recommendations than CallCentric? I spoke with them more about this today and I believe we will start with the main 2 lines first. Makes it pretty simple. Basic features they are looking for are the hunt group/roll over between the two lines, voicemail (doesn't even have to be to email), and that's really about it but I'm sure there are more that come with VoIP.

Most of the calls are incoming, when I asked them about the 1000 outbound with CallCentric they said that would be plenty. I assume that the 1000 minute package with CallCentric was outbound and inbound is unlimited?