We have an IP Office system here in the U.S. that we basic config/maintenance on ourselves (cBeyond PRI), but we have a "phone guy" for hardware changes, or anything dealing with the PRI, which we know nothing about.
We also use the hell out of Skype for some UK-based Sales staff, and I'm got some ideas that might merge the two and solve some problems for us. I do not know what if this is possible, and my phone guy is more of a PBX/PRI guy than an IP guy.
Our local UK office number is a SkypeIn local London number - right now, we route it to a DID on our IPOffice in the US, where we have a call flow set up. When the calls need to route to our UK sales staff, we use the IPOffice Telecommuter Mode which dials the local UK number of our UK sales person, who uses PhoneManager to control the calls. This works fine but has the obvious problem of double-paying international rates for what is essentially a UK local call (and telecommuter mode can be cumbersome). What I would like to do is this:
-set up a Skype SIP trunk on my IP office
-calls to our UK SkypeIn number hit the IPOffice switch via Skype SIP
-any outgoing calls to pre-defined European country codes made from IPOffice are automatically routed via the Skype SIP trunk COMPLETE with our UK SkypeIn number as the caller ID (this last part is really important)
-our UK sales staff would be a member of huntgroups, take calls, etc using a Skype client and "Telecommuter Mode" just like she does now, except the back-haul to the UK would be free, since she would be over skype (not sure if this part is true, since maybe the only way telecommuter mode would work was if she used a SkypeIn number herself?)
Is all that possible??? Is there anyone with experience who might want to set this up for me? Atlanta area ideal, but could work remotely via VPN with my doing the hardware stuff.
I should add, all of this is based on the expectation that just giving our UK staff a Avaya IP phone with Avaya VPN would NOT be a satisfactory solution given the long network haul with unmanaged connection. (T1 on our side with business cable modem back-up, and business cable modem on the UK end).
THanks!
-djm
We also use the hell out of Skype for some UK-based Sales staff, and I'm got some ideas that might merge the two and solve some problems for us. I do not know what if this is possible, and my phone guy is more of a PBX/PRI guy than an IP guy.
Our local UK office number is a SkypeIn local London number - right now, we route it to a DID on our IPOffice in the US, where we have a call flow set up. When the calls need to route to our UK sales staff, we use the IPOffice Telecommuter Mode which dials the local UK number of our UK sales person, who uses PhoneManager to control the calls. This works fine but has the obvious problem of double-paying international rates for what is essentially a UK local call (and telecommuter mode can be cumbersome). What I would like to do is this:
-set up a Skype SIP trunk on my IP office
-calls to our UK SkypeIn number hit the IPOffice switch via Skype SIP
-any outgoing calls to pre-defined European country codes made from IPOffice are automatically routed via the Skype SIP trunk COMPLETE with our UK SkypeIn number as the caller ID (this last part is really important)
-our UK sales staff would be a member of huntgroups, take calls, etc using a Skype client and "Telecommuter Mode" just like she does now, except the back-haul to the UK would be free, since she would be over skype (not sure if this part is true, since maybe the only way telecommuter mode would work was if she used a SkypeIn number herself?)
Is all that possible??? Is there anyone with experience who might want to set this up for me? Atlanta area ideal, but could work remotely via VPN with my doing the hardware stuff.
I should add, all of this is based on the expectation that just giving our UK staff a Avaya IP phone with Avaya VPN would NOT be a satisfactory solution given the long network haul with unmanaged connection. (T1 on our side with business cable modem back-up, and business cable modem on the UK end).
THanks!
-djm
