I’m not clear on how someone can be selling business phone systems and get hung-up (pun not intended but not bad, either) over $75.
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I just want to mention two quick points:
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You don’t have to buy EPM. You can manually set-up and configure your phones by using their web interface, or by uploading the configuration files to the /tftpboot folder and settings up your router to supply your PBX’s IP address in DHCP Option 66. I’ve NEVER used EPM.
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If you use Sangoma phones, EPM works without a license.
2 Likes
This. I have over 100 endpoints on a deployment. It is a massive timesaver.
If you have a few large installs, yes, it does make sense. When you have a number of small installs then it tends to be cost prohibitive.
I have to agree re Grandstream phones, we have about 700 of them on our main site and will be buying another 100 for one of our other sites. Whilst they are not perfect (are any phones) they are great value for money. It was being able to buy phones for about £60 that included a 1GB switch that initially sold them to us, with 700 phones to bye every £ saved quickly adds up. Eg the Sangoma s400 (that doesn’t have a 1GB switch, and only monochrome display) list cost is £94 , the Grandstream GXP2130 (1GB switch and colour) list cost £81, so for us a saving of well over £9K for a better spec phone, and for us they work fine.
150$ is okay as long the support for reported issues works.
We added tickets months ago for broken SnomM700 (not usable, they crash because of wrong generated files) and Panasonic Phones but nobody of Sangoma cares about it.
https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-14648
https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-14527
https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-14411
https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-14409
https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-11516
https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-11016
Why pay 150$ if i have to correct the generated cfg files by hand and correct the broken lines after a rebuild?
The support for issues has definitely to get better for a commercial module like epm.
We are very unhappy with the situation at the moment.
Some issues have already the solution in the comments included and just need to be corrected in EPM. But nobody cares…
For the pricing it shouldn’t be affording us to change every basefile to get TLS/SRTP and HTTPS provisioning working.
Next: Snom is FreePBX Certified and the M700 still cannot be provisioned correctly at the moment.
We care about your issue but right now we are trying to figure out what can be done since we have 1 person working on this module and over 200 open tickets assigned to it. Because there are 200 open tickets and only one person the tickets against EPM are going to lag. The price increase will also start to resolve this problem as well.
We do.
@tm1000
Thats what we like to hear. 
I sell 100 PBXAct systems and tell my customers we have only 1 person working on this when they ask me to do some additional config. 
We plan to start a ad campaign in Austria during the next weeks for PBXACT/FreePBX. (belongs to that what the customer needs) and im the one who has to Setup and configure the things. We will drive around to potential customers and show them Sangoma’s Solutions. Our top sellers are Panasonic KX-TGP600, Snom M700, Yealink T48S and the first time we also will offer Sangoma all phones. Thats the reason why we ask you to fix the things in the near future.
But i dont want to be nagative at all. The last years Sangoma has given FreePBX a new live. It makes us happy to be a partner of Sangoma and offer a very stable PBX to our customers. All other companys here in our country sell 3CX and Mitel PBX systems and we have a really nice alternative.
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Luke’s a busy guy. He’s done a great job, but glad to see they’re adding additional dev resources to this one.
I have to say this is not as I would like to see things go here.
You have a module that works roughly as well as the free module (this is my opinion). It has been said there is only 1 guy working on the oss module but also stated there is only 1 guy working on the paid module.
Then on top of this you double the price of the paid EPM and basically state it costs double now so it can get better later on.
You do understand why this sounds less than inspiring? As a consumer it is tough to find the value vs the free module. And while I understand the OSS module and the paid EPM module is a little bit of apples vs oranges you must also understand the market forces.
Look I know I am being a negative Nancy here but I say all this not to simply complain but to try to make things better for everyone.
So my suggestion? If you are going to keep the price that high then show me the value. Yes it saves all sorts of time but so does the free module and that’s the whole market forces thing.
One place I would REALLY see value is if support was stellar. I am not sure what the support of EPM is beyond the forums and IRC because I could not find anything about it. And at $150 forums and IRC is not acceptable.
I can bring that statement a little further and say if support were better overall (and I mean paid support) I would be FAR more interested in purchasing things from Sangoma/FreePBX.
Just my 2 cents. Again I not simply complaining here, I am trying to throw it all out there in hopes it helps.
All paid modules come with free support for bugs the first year and each year after when under maintance.
As far as OSS EPM it is not and never been built, supported or maintained by Sangoma or FreePBX so I have no clue who or how many people work on it.
I can tell you we are trying to get bugs fixed as fast as we can and we focus on the manufactures that are certified first and only than look to tickets from uncerfiifed manufactures.
Tony, thanks for the reply.
Please do not take my words to infer that there is any lack of intent or effort. I feel their is plenty of both. But with that said customers are not paying for intent or effort but for the product you produce in the case of paid items.
I understand OSS has zero to do with Sangoma but that is besides the point.
I am totally unaware of how to take advantage of that support. I could find no record of it anywhere. Can you please point me to it for future reference?
Thank you
You make it sound like EPM doesn’t work. It works great for most users and the issues that come up are usually edge cases or advanced things like modifying base files. Basic config and button management is flawless for the most popular current phones on the market.
As far as support like everything else it’s in our wiki. Search in the wiki and you will see it. We also define it in the TOS you agree to when you make a purchase.
I believe the only mention I made towards performance was that it worked roughly as well as the OSS module.
I would consider the fact that I have to search through a wiki to find support for paid items a problem. That is unless the goal is make it hard to find.
My point is that , currently, it is not clear at all how to find support for paid modules. I believe I did find it but it took several minutes of searching and link mining. And that is only because you told me to look in the wiki. Before that I had no clue and I have looked before.
Seriously man. How would we communicate it any differently to you. The only place is in the documentation as that is where we communicate and document everything. On your checkout we link to the ToS of your purchase and also in your invoice which states what you receive with your purchase. On the invoice we also state first year of support is included for free.
If I buy something from any company the first place I look for support options is on their documentation site on how to get support.
Sorry if I sound grumpy but we try hard to document this stuff and never had someone complain because we document how to actually get support in the documentation site for our product.
Also when you log into our portal their is a menu option for support and logs you into the ticketing system and if you click on FreePBX you will also see a whole department on just Commercial Modules which states the requirement for support also.
I am not sure brow beating a customer making a suggestion or trying to inform you of a perceived issue is the best policy.
Look, all I am saying is this. I, a paying customer could not find support for what I purchased. You have links all over the place for paid support. I mean all over the place. But you tell me I have to go wiki mining to find support for modules. I cannot think of one product I have purchased anytime recently that was a similar case.
Take it for what you want, it’s just my 2 cents.
Not sure what more we can do. But I am done with this topic so I won’t be engaging anymore here and his will be my last reply.
You take my long reply and hone in on wiki only when I listed lots of other places where we list it. It’s in the portal under the support link and it’s even on your invoice that support is included that was emailed to you after your purchase it’s also in the help menu of the item in the store when you made your purchase that support is included.
Lots of different places state it. Most obvious is the link in the portal that says support and takes you to the ticketing system. This is the same portal you buy the very same products from.
On our portal and website the chat with us now button would of gotten you with the sales team to answer the question if your truly were confused. The phone number on our website that let’s you get into the sales team members via calling. The support side of sangoma website that links to our support offerings and to the support portal It’s everywhere if your truly were looking or confused.
I buy a Dell computer I have to login into their portal and Lodge a support ticket with them and can only do so if it’s covered under a warranty plan.
I know you say it comes with free support for bugs, but I had an issue I tried to get support on a few months ago that was caused by a bug that I was told “you need to buy support credits before we’ll help at all, it’s in the service agreement”
I searched the service agreement at the time and it wasn’t in there. The issue was fixed in a later patch, so it’s moot now, but frankly the support process since the sangoma buyout has been pretty terrible. I miss the days of being able to put in a ticket and get Robert on the line within minutes who would knock out the issue for me most the time in 15 minutes or less.
Kyle
We should never ask you to buy support for a Commercial Module bug. Support is only asked to be purchased if what you are requesting with your commercial module is not for a bug but setup, configuration or general help using the product. The free Support with CMs is for bug reporting only to escalate a bug report you may have. I did just review all your tickets and I can not find a single ticket for a commercial module under you name where we ever asked you to buy support credits. Can you PM me the ticket number as I want to make sure this is not happening as its not how support for CMs work.
Sure. I logged in today and found they took 26 credits off for that ticket where they did nothing other than tell me I needed to buy support as well.
Ticket number incoming in PM