VOIP in the small business – update… 3
Mar2
Phones are boring, until they don’t work or get GPS or something. If you’re not interested in the crazy way the phone systems are changing in regard to calling over the Internet skip this post and come back from something more exciting (baby pictures?) soon.
After my post in November last year on the successful upgrade of a Asterisk PBX at Wanaka Wastebusters a lot has happened.
The reason I installed a local Trixbox server in the first place was to take advantage of cheaper calling, have more lines and to make administration of the system easier. At the time the local Voip Trunk providers (who all seem to resell the 2talk service) did not have a good multi extension feature. Our trial with Kiwilink never gave us a solid way of transferring calls.
Our Trixbox setup was good, but I was not happy with the possibility of failure with the laptop it was running on. So we invested in a IP01 embedded box from Nicegear. This solution worked ok but we had repetitive problems with incoming calls dropping. I’m sure one of the 200,000+ settings in Asterisk could have been tweeked but damned if I could find which one.
Soooo…in the meantime 2talk had a better implementation of their line manager and I decided if we could manage all our lines and features from one login a hosted service was the way forward – into the cloud we went. I decided to invest in a bunch of Linksys SPA942 deskphones to get some continuity in our endpoints, set them all up and sat back with fingers crossed sweating.
I should mentioned I also doubled up our broadband connection with 1 x wan through hd.co.nz and one through netspeed.co.nz with a fail over at the router level. I figured the extra $60 a month would pay itself back easily through saved calling costs.
The result has been, so far, excellent. We’ve had failures on both internet connection, fortunately not at the same time so nobody but me know. Perfect. Calling has been of high quality and transfers, auto attendant and voicemail to email have all been seamless.
The only comment I have is that the 2talk web interface for the line manager is buggy and badly designed. I couldn’t change the caller id for the lines from it and the email for voicemail setting there didn’t seem to work. I’d love the job of redesigning the interface – actually I’d like to do the 2degrees one as well, but that is another story :-)
A strangely enjoyable computer purchasing experience
Nov0
I recently had to purchase a few new computers for the Wanaka Wastebusters office. I was resigned to having to go the Dell route due to their aggressive pricing but having had two excellent Thinkpads in the past (an R50 and my current T61p) I checked the Lenovo site just to see what was going on with Lenovo in NZ.
When I bought my T61p from the USA i could bring it in at around half the price of the same machine online through Lenovo NZ. So it was with surprise that I saw really competitive pricing on the NZ site. Yeehaaa. Dell has astonished me in the past with their (lack of) customer service, especially with a XPS Merle had which had well documented design flaws they refused to take responsibility for. If you know you’ve made a bad mistake in a product surely the length of warranty should be extended?
I was even more impressed that during ordering online I rang the 0800 number with a technical question and got a very helpful woman, I think in NZ or maybe Aussie, who obviously knew the product inside out.
Ontop off all this when the laptop arrived it had excellent low key, recyclable packaging (see below). Which considering the machine is to be used in a packaging campaign is very apt.
Lenovo laptop packaging, simple, elegant, recyclable.
More phone craziness – ATCOM IP01 Asterisk PABX
Nov1
A few months ago I installed a digital Pabx here at Wastebusters. It was an old Toshiba laptop running the opensource Asterisk/Trixbox CE mix. Since then it has mostly worked well apart from some hiccups at the beginning, and some occasional loss of internet connection which takes down the phones.
From the beginning it is has been obvious that relying on an old laptop has its disadvantages, mainly as if the power goes out it does not boot up automatically. It also relies on the laptop hardware and hard drive, which when (not if) it fails is fairly catastrophic. A server grade bit of gear with a UPS would be nicer.
The world of computers is ever changing and this year it looks like the age of the embedded system on cheap, but powerful, processors is here. Below is a ATCOM IP01, it is effectively a mini computer (from Nicegear) running a 400mhz Blackfin processor which as it turns out is ample to run a linux/asterisk stack ~ cost $295nzd. What does this mean? You can now replace a cabinet sized PABX with a low power box the size of a calculator. No surprise I guess when you look at an advanced mobile phone.
ATCOM IP01 Asterisk Applicance
The experience setting it up was mostly good, the gui is ok (some contrasting colours separating feature groups would be good) and my experience with Asterisk generally came in handy.
So now the little guy is churning away handling 10 extensions, an auto attendant, voicemail to email and all the goodness. It isnot over though – unfortunately we have a very sporadic call dropping issue which I am hoping is almost fixed.
The next mission, depending on how our internet connection reliability goes, is to add a normal phone line to the IP01 so if the net is down it has a fall over. The other option would be to add a GSM trunk so the fallover was a cellphone ~ I need to start looking for a economic SIP->GSM widget that could plugin as a trunk. Hmmm….
Asterisk / Trixbox digital PABX in real world use
May3
What this looks like is a old Toshiba laptop sitting on a shelf. Which is correct except right now it is handling up to a few hundred phone calls a day as a digital PABX running a Trixbox build of Asterisk+Linux software .
What does this mean? Well…Wanaka Wastebusters, where it is installed (please do not steal it :-), has one phone number people can ring in the normal phone like way. That phone number has been parked at a service provider and there enters the internet. Over the interweb thingy this laptop talks to the provider and can conduct up to five simultaneous calls. At Wanaka Wastebusters there are ten extensions that each have voice mail and are available through the IVR (a recorded message you get when you ring the number) – all of these features are running off the laptop. People can dial within each others extensions and transfer calls etc and generally be productive hopefully.
Nice – but why? Well it saves a few hundred dollars a month on line charges for extra phone lines with Telecom and means we can add users and features as we need them. We can also make use of cheaper calling rates and eventually peer directly hopefully with other businesses using SIP which is the glue like protocol making all the VOIP stuff happening. It is an acronym world.
Pretty cool use for an old computer huh. I’m not sure how long a laptop will last always on but it has been working for 5 weeks no problem and because it has a battery even has its own UPS built in. We might have a sweepstake on what gives up first – the power pack I’d say.
In case of failure or hacking I am building another one on a old IBM Pentium 4 which could be plugged in as a replacement. What I would really like though is a few Sheevaplugs, amazing 5w super computers. That is ‘super’ as in awesome not as in a Cray – although they are probably faster than most Crays ever built… maybe one day …
Laptop bag prototype – 95% recycled content
May0
I haven’t had much time recently to do as much on Loopcase as I’d like but I did manage to get a prototype laptop case made fro Tommi last week. It is for a Sony 13.1 inch Z-Series (VPCZ116GGB).
I really like having a separate case for the laptop/mouse/power adapter to my pack or other bag. Having a laptop in with my soup pot or tape measure and pliers I seem to carry around doesn’t feel right. So this format – a padded sleeve with front pocket for the peripherals works really well. You can always throw it in another bag if needs be.
New small business Voip system up and running
Nov3
Well it’s been a bit of an epic – mainly struggling with diverse hardware and getting Telecom to give up the Wanaka Wastebusters number. But the new internet based phone system is now up and running.
The system:
- 4 x lines on standard phones through 1 x Linksys ATA and 1 x WAG with 2 ATA ports
- 4 x people using softphones – X-Lite
- 1 x Linksys SPA922 VOIP deskphone
- Auto attendant on main calling in line
- Eftpos and Fax on a POTs line which also carries the ADSL
- Voicemail on all extensions with voicemail sent to email addresses where necessary
Lessons so far:
- Linksys ATA’s seem to be more reliable and give better call quality than a software phone on a PC.
- Starting out with one sort of end point (ATA’s) would have been easier. Having people on three different solutions makes config and customization a bit of a nightmare.
- The free version of X-Lite does not do a blind transfer, I haven’t found a free softphone yet that does but will try Zoiper tomorrow.
- Without a local digital PBX (Wastebusters is using the Kiwilink service) you are restricted to the options that the external service offers on their (usually Asterisk) setup. In this case a limit of 9 speed dial numbers restricting the pool of possible blind transfer speed dials.
Savings
- Reduced monthly rentals by around $200
- Cheaper calling costs
- Flexible extensible PBX features, mostly changeable through web interface
Fenestration fustration – antivirus
Nov0
I would rather be worrying about windows of a glass variety – but in order to design on a computer I accept there is a maintenance cost. My Windows XP T61p is slower, mainly due to a full disk, than ever and I hate over bloated antivirus software that advertises to you at every opportunity (in this case Avira).
I have always thought good antivirus should be part of an operating system, after all who knows the internal workings of a platform better than the developer? It has always irked me that after buying Windows you then have to buy or find a kindly free provider for a key operating system component – protection from virus’s.
Over the years I have used a paid for Nortons license (horrible and slow), a free AVG edition (actually quite good) and a free Avira (German software? Had to try it but horrible popup ads). So it was with pleasure I installed Windows Security Essentials a few weeks ago, its small, fast and unobtrusive. And totally free – ie: no ads. I then went on to replace Nod32 on 8 computers saving Wastebusters $400 a year. So far the experience has been exceptional.
I also disabled the Client Security Solution in the Bios which has made a small difference.
Display link…yummmm…
Feb0
I went looking to buy a new monitor today – and ran into something interesting. I rarely get excited about new hardware…but…I imagined something like this four years ago and now it’s here!
I always thought monitors would ultimately be a similar resource to a computer as a webcam, keyboard or mouse. Imagine getting rid of the annoying cables and being able to chain them together USB style or use small 2.4ghz wireless connectors. Your monitor could be on the other side of the lounge and you could play your movie to it from your laptop with no string connected. Ah bliss – they are here.
There are only Asus ones in NZ so far I think, and surprisingly Dell doesn’t show any. I think I’ll have to wait till there is a bigger range…
Ubuntu, VMware and Graphics applications
Feb0
I have had an excellent experience running Ubuntu under VMPlayer on XP as my development webserver. It’s faster than WAMP and easily transportable.
So, when it came to rebooting Merles Dell 1330 which has had consistent networking issues with Vista I thought, hell, we could have Ubuntu running on the wee guy and Vista running as a guest under VM.
This would have the benefit of the guest being easily back-up-able with the apps installed and transportable across computers.
Turns out that is good in theory and not in practice, mainly because running graphics apps is so ram hungry (I think). Vista with apps took up over 20gb and was crazy slow.
So it is back to Vista, a shame because Ubuntu 8.10 was amazing. It recognised all the hardware first go and was a fast joy to use.
Clients
