Phone lines for our UCx ... would SIP lines be better?

[mrdom]

Hi everyone: I'm reaching out to see if we can do better with our phone lines. We have a total of five lines, which are currently provided to us via our cable provider. The lines terminate in the equipment room, and they feed into a Grandstream modem. That's how the UCx connects to the PSTN.

Four of the five lines are used by the UCx. One line is used for our elevator, and has to remain a premise line.

We're paying $30 per month for each line, but it comes with a host of features we do not use. All we need on the line is the rollover hunting feature so calls can rollover to the next line if it's busy.

Would we be better off getting SIP lines that can integrate with the UCx? I understand the SIP concept, but I'm not sure if I really understand if this would be a better option for us or not. We're looking to save a little money on our lines ... not sure if going SIP would do that for us.

Thanks for any help you might be able to provide!

 

[theislandtech]

You can't go wrong with SIP, a reliable ISP provider and good bandwidth is a necessity.
All my client are on SIP except for two

 

[mrdom]

Thanks islandtech. I'm not sure if you can post this in a message, and if you can't, would you be able to send me a PM with the providers you utilize? I'd love to do some comparisons. For the premise line that we'd need to keep, we cant do that as a SIP line right? We'd still need a POTS line for this? Thanks for the help!

 

[theislandtech]

Hi,
I can't find a way to send a PM.
One of my local telco's provides a line just for the use of elevators, pools, alarms, etc (can only dial 911 and toll free numbers) for about a third the cost of a PSTN.
Depending on regulations in your area, you can use sip, can use pbx extensions or ringdowns also if you have a front desk or an onsite office manned 24/7.
One of the main providers I use has many data centers and I select the data center closest to my customer