[GRLUG] telephony shake-up again

[Greg Folkert]

On Tue, 2008-02-26 at 16:24 -0500, George (Skip) VerDuin wrote:
> Just as we discuss Asterisk in meeting and as I get ready to buy the
> hardware to make it happen in my home, along comes a new hardware that
> jumps the game to another level:
>   see for example  www.openspeak.com
> 
> I've been looking for a while at Asterisk, plus various home-control
> approaches that include creature comfort like heat, and security
> including door locks/video/sound to remotely permit/monitor access.
> These thoughts took root while I was checking my parents home in MI
> while they were in FLA.
> 
> Why bring this up?  I'm a subscriber to conventional telephone and DSL,
> but not to cable because my lifestyle would change for the worse to sit
> before the tube for more hours than I do now (remotely).  I expect my
> choice is on the fringe of normal.  As a meeting topic, would it be
> useful to discuss the various external sources of services and the
> effect it has on I/O devices we support under the Linux umbrella?  For
> example:  I have heard but not validated the detail that my town is
> seriously considering broad band over power line service & I'd be happy
> to investigate the subject further for GRLUG.  Perhaps someone in GRLUG
> already knows if/when fiber service is to be locally considered to
> replace copper telephone/DSL.
>
> I for one have interest in trying to tie a ribbon around the subject of
> what services are being offered & considered by local providers and the
> impact on my pocketbook as my computer I/Os change from generation to
> generation.  I also am not certain how this subject flies inside GRLUG?

Okay, since the last meeting I've been to and now, the virtual company I
work for has decided to deprecate our VOIP phone system, an Altigen 4.6
system.

We have decided to go with a hosted Asterisk SIP solution. From:
        www.aretta.com 

The costs involved before the switch are this:
        $1200/month (average) in long distance through "Lightwave" at
        $0.09 per minute
        $1100/month in T services from Lightwave
        $50/month T services surcharge from our colo hoster
        $200/month in rack space (its a large old 11u machine)
        $40/month for power
        $98/month for "1-800" service
        $400/month in "conference bridging" as the Altigen doesn't do it
        $200/month for services licensed from Altigen including:
                64 VOIP phone seats (we only need ~20, smallest they
                offer)
                Multi T-channel support
                PRI and BRI support
                4 lines of CO support (required to get call-groups and
                hunt groups)
                64 Voicemail boxes (again more than we need)
                20 Polycom phones with support (though they haven't been
                updated for 5 years, and Ploycom recs about a 7 year
                newer firmware than they have on them)
                various other things
                no DID support, costs more plus upgrades to
                hardware/OS/programs needed
                Windows 2000 is the OS (bleah)

Or $3288/month total cost just for the PHONE SYSTEM!
        
The services from Aretta are this:
        $178/month (projected average) in long distance at $0.011 per
        minute
        $199/month for hosted Asterisk in redundant locations (running
        on a Grid setup) with 32 phone calls at the same time.
        $60/month ($2/month x 30) for Local DID numbers for our
        customers (30 cities)
        $20/month for "1-800" service fee (mostly govt surcharge)
        $100/month for various packages like direct voip/sip calling
        $50/month for all "line fees" gov't taxes and so on

Or $607/month total cost. Or 18.4610706% the cost per month or almost
$2700/month in savings. Not to mention it doesn't impact our network
bandwidth to our facilities anymore, nor does our traffic impact our
phone system... just now found out that we can FAX directly into the
Asterisk system and have it part of our whole setup at no additional
charge... Buh-by fax service @ $90/month.

Did I also mention, that every feature the Alitgen has, we now have, as
well.

The best part of this: We no longer have to be hardware maintainers, nor
do we have to worry about disaster recovery, that is Aretta's problem
via contract.

Oh, we will also be the first (redundantly hosted) customer in the
fourth data-center they are opening in Utah later this week. fully
replicated and ready to go with just a DNS change from us (yeah we
wanted to control that)


In summary, If you have a distributed work-force and would like to have
a unified phone system, I'd give a hosted Asterisk setup a hard look. If
you only have one brick and mortar building and don't really have an
"upscale" Internet connection... (read as a T-1, or other guaranteed
uptime Internet service)  your phone system will only be as reliable as
your connection then, you might look at a Key-System from the likes of
Panasonic or similar (initial cost and setup ~$4000 for 10 phones).
-- 
greg at gregfolkert.net
PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05
Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0  2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C
Alternate Fingerprint: 09F9 1102 9D74  E35B D841 56C5 6356 88C0
Alternate Fingerprint: 455F E104 22CA  29C4 933F 9505 2B79 2AB2
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://shinobu.grlug.org/pipermail/grlug/attachments/20080227/b86386bd/attachment-0001.pgp