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New building = new phone system = advice needed :) 5

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bzbee

IS-IT--Management
Mar 15, 2010
21
Howdy,

My wife's medical practice is moving to a new building that is under construction. With the move, they're planning on scraping their existing digital phone system with a new one. At the new site, there will be a need to have around 25 handsets sharing 6 or so lines (right now they have 4 lines but are getting complaints from patients experiencing busy signals).

Our first decision to make: Hosted PBX or Premise PBX? Personally, I like the hosted pbx as it's one less piece of hardware for the practice to maintain/update (they're not tech folks and I don't want to be their support person..especially on phone matters). The drawback with hosted is that our ISPs (cable, DSL) are not especially reliable (DSL is better than cable but folks get mighty nervous imagining the phone system down).

If we go premise pbx, should we use TDM/Digital or IP based? One of the techs is suggesting that we go with an ESI digital system but I'm a little hesitant to go that route considering that it will require separate phone lines (unless we can run them over the planned Cat6 lines) and doesn't offer all the flexibility in moving/programming phones that office staff could be expected to handle. As far as needed features the digital system should meet the needs now but I wonder about flexibility/upgradability for the years to come). Also, a large majority of stuff selling today is IP based so I wonder if tdm is being weeded out (don't want to be the last person buying a betamax player :)

What kind of lines to use. At a former job, I had to support an Avaya IPO 500 that we had POTS lines connected to it. It worked but I always felt we were getting nickeled and dimed when trying to add additional POTS lines. Currently the office has 4lines but I think going to 8 would provide enough breathing room. We've had a vendor come out and pitch SIP trunks but that still relies on a reliable internet connection no? We should have fiber up in the area when we move to the area and I'm chomping at the bit to use that for networking and telecom needs. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated here as we want reliability without forking over a ton of moola to Ma Bell.

Well, that's all the questions that we have now. I can appreciate that different folks will have different answers that work perfectly for their environment but would like to see what logic folks use for their decision to go with x as opposed to y.

Thanks for the read and any advice you can dole out.

Have a great day!

chris
 
STAY AWAY FROM HOSTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY WELL CHARGE YOU FOR EVERY LITTLE THING YOU EVER WANT DONE OR TOO ADD. YOU ARE VERY LIMITED!!!!!!!! shortel is a awsome system but also a very pretty penny for it. if you are looking for a budget system i would go for the NEC SL1100 it is a good system and very up to date it can go IP or Digital depending on what you want. the Voicemail is awsome with voicemail to email intergration. i have installed many SL1100 in doc. offices because it is perfect for there neeeds. you could even save a little more by going with the sister unit NEC DSX 80.....
 
Shore tel is a nice product but definately not nearly as popular as the Avaya or toshiba systems

The great thing about toshiba is it is available as a hosted product as well.

Avaya is heading towards this route also.

We also sell a product called lime box that is hybrid hosted/premise based.. Pretty cool stuff

My only suggestion is go with a name brand, don't let one of these no name companies come in and sell you.

One too many horror stories that make us look like heroes :)
 
Is ESI a known name brand? A tech in our group has good experience with it (at least the TDM/Digital flavors of ESI). Granted, I'd like to get the best tech for the money but one can't discount your support person's comfort and familiarity with a product (too bad this isn't one of those simple decisions but more so a tradeoff :)

Great suggestions so far. Keep 'em coming!
 
One thing that may be helpful is having a system that offers backend flexibility. Initially, we may go with the local teleco for local lines and the like but as internet reliability improves, we may want to expand out with SIP trunks (holler at me if SIP Trunks are the devil or the like..they seem appealing from a cost standpoint :)
 
The NEC DSX80 and the SL1100 supports pots ,sip, and T-1 and offers lots of flexiblity. there voice mail will even let you do a custom message on hold greeting
 
SIP is great depending on your internet connection if you get just basic speeds dont wast your time i would go with the bussness class such as time warners 10x i have customers that use that and they are fine very little packet loss and very good sound quality......... i would not recomend it on a DSL line. an i always tell customers to keep one pots line for a back up and use it as a fax
 
We have charter cable in our neck of the woods (rural NC) and it's as flaky as a box of Kellogg's :) Thanks for the idea to keep a POTS as a backup/fax. I was hoping to do faxing in the cloud in the long run but it never hurts to have a life line.
 
If this is a medical practice, I would not skimp on a phone system. Patients need to reach you and you need to reach patients, suppliers and other medical services. Go digital/hybrid. Run a dedicated phone cable to each jack location. No SIP trunk, no voip, no hosted. You want reliability, go with an established brand name with many vendors in your area. Why pinch pennies?
 
Jsadd,

You're right on the importance of having a reliable system for the medical practice. I was just hoping that the technology has come further along that going VOIP/SIP/Hosted was as reliable as the old tried and true phone system. Eventually, stuff will get to that point and I wanted to factor in some form of flexibility in the our system to be able to go to the better option.
 
Just go with the IP Office again. You already know it. Stick with it.

ACSS - SME
General Geek



1832163.png
 
I wouldn't say I *know* mainly we didn't quabble with each other (I tried not to meddle with it as long as it promised to work without fail ;)

I don't think I'll have free time to support the system and as such would want something that staff can easily manage but not break (and if they breakt than a "professional" would be available to fix it on the spot).
 
I agree with hairlessupportmonkey. Go back to the IP Office. They are a great phone system and generally pretty easy to configure/use. Also go with hard lines if you are saying the cable round there is bad. Nothing worse than not being able to get through to your doc in an emergency because the internet died :S
 
Where are you based? Perhaps you might be better off getting in your local business partner for some consultation time? They will fit and support it for the practice.

ACSS - SME
General Geek



1832163.png
 
The clinic is located in Roxboro, NC (aka "slim pickings") when it comes to tech stuff. With fiber coming to town, I think we'll at last have fast and reliable on one side of the chart (still don't know about cheap though). Since this a construction project, hopefully the fiber will be in place (just need to find who the last mile carrier will be to connect us to that bad boy).
 
STAY AWAY FROM HOSTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY WELL CHARGE YOU FOR EVERY LITTLE THING YOU EVER WANT DONE OR TOO ADD. YOU ARE VERY LIMITED!!!!!!!! shortel is a awsome system but also a very pretty penny for it. if you are looking for a budget system i would go for the NEC SL1100 it is a good system and very up to date it can go IP or Digital depending on what you want. the Voicemail is awsome with voicemail to email intergration. i have installed many SL1100 in doc. offices because it is perfect for there neeeds. you could even save a little more by going with the sister unit NEC DSX 80..... email me at schoebo35@gmail.com and i can give you some more advice. but if you decide to go hosted you are going too pay for somthing that well never be yours ever. and you minuse well just throw your money away...........

What a load of rubbish you do talk
we charge a set fee and you can have as much support and programing as you like. Its more reliable than on site with just as many features if not more and you are not restricted by the amount of lines you can have and you will get full disaster recovery. vm to email is standerd now on most systems and is included foc on our hosted as well as a long long long list of outher features that you pay through the nose for on most outher systems
 
The best part is the "hosted" guy telling us that all other systems are junk. Perhaps he would suggest hosted in a critical mission like a hospital, or county office building?

Six phone lines and 24 phones is NOT A HOSTED application. It's a tried and true TDM system that should have simply been a new KSU and reuse your old phones for economy. Why retrain your users on phone systems when you can retain the old sets?

LkEErie
 
whats rong with hosted in a doctors?? they prob host there servers in a data center so why not phones allot more relable and secure than tin on the wall
 
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