We are a 2-person small business with one guy in Dallas and another guy in Boston. We now have two phone with SIP adapters with VOIP services from Onesuite and both are working however we are not able to transfer customers phone calls. Say the guy in Dallas can’t answer a question from customer, he needs to transfer to Boston office. How can we do that? Is FreePBX a good choice for us? If yes, what kind of hardware shall we have? Thanks!
I don’t think you want to run a server for just two people. This is an ideal opportunity for a hosted server.
I usually don’t solicit in the threads but if you are interested in exploring hosting options please click on my username and send me a private message.
To answer your original question FreePBX will do what you want (or specifically the FreePBX distro) however you would be at the mercy of concentrating all your calls in and out of your broadband connection.
If you happen to have access to a data center to put your server in then that would work great.
Lastly, minimal hardware needed. Small ATOM box with a SSD would be perfect.
Hosted vs self owned is of course one of the decisions you’ll need to make. In part I think it depends on how much you enjoy toying with phone systems vs doing whatever else it is you do. There are pros and cons to both IMHO.
But will the system do what you want? Absolutely, and more. It will be like the two of you are in the same office. You’ll have intercom, phone transfers, call forwarding, etc. You can even set your cell phones up as a part of the system so your calls go to both your cell phone and your office phone. Plus you can MAKE calls from your cell phone that carry your office Caller ID so as not to confuse customers (or give out your cell phone number if you like to protect that information).
You’ll love the phone system either way. The first decision is deciding how much of your time you want to spend on it.
it’s not easy
You could look at hosted Asterisk. There are several providers out there who can provide hosted Asterisk based PBX systems. For two people it’s a bit of overkill but if you plan new facilities and plan to expand maybe it’s an option.