I used to manage the on-premise FreePBX box for a local oganisation.
They’ve decided they don’t understand FreePBX and don’t like relying on me for help (even though I don’t charge them).
They would ideally like to move to a cloud VOIP solution. Possibly/probably not even FreePBX/Asterisk anymore.
The building has a load of Digium D50s in it.
Can anyone advise if they’d still be able to use the D50s? I’m guessing not easily/securely? I think they want a very basic setup.
D50s are auto-provisioned only by Switchvox and FreePBX/PBXact with EPM.
They are just regular SIP phones, so they can be used that way. But, these phones are built to be driven by an external provisioning source - they’re not built to be driven by their web interfaces…BLF keys aren’t programmable via any web UI on the phone, for example, they’re driven by configuration files.
The D50s don’t do TLS for SIP signaling or SRTP for voice encryption. They do support TLS v1.2 for cURL actions, so they can be told to retrieve their config files securely from an HTTPs server.
Have a look at:
https://wiki.sangoma.com/display/PHON/Provisioning%2C+D-Series
and:
https://wiki.sangoma.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=274071919
That’ll give you the gist on how they’re provisioned and what the provisioning files look like.
For Contacts, see:
https://wiki.sangoma.com/display/PHON/Contacts
and for BLF items (the BLF keys layout / assignment), see:
https://wiki.sangoma.com/display/PHON/Smart+BLF
How about PBXact Cloud?
If they have a basic setup, then for what do they rely on your help?
Our (Clearly IP) solution, Clearly Cloud, supports provisioning the D50 phones. That said the only problem that seems to be solved in what I am reading is not having an on premise system. ALL solutions are going to have some form of learning curve. So what ever you go to will need someone to still do Move/Add/Change etc and someone will have to learn all of that again. Nothing is saved by switching solutions except having a server on site.
Seems like the organization is less than optimally managed. You get that with maybe a church organization. I like FreePBX and it does take time to learn. One suggestion you might make is when they provision or make changes to do a screen recording of what they did and save it to watch again. It can be frustrating to admin FreePBX if done sporadically. It is such a hodge podge and features are not organized in a way to easily find. Making little go to video clips to refresh up on forgotten ways to admin and provision works great though.
I was able to convince a client to stay with their current FreePBX on-premise solution after showing them this video from Chris Sherwood entitled “RingCentral Exposed: How They Rip Off Businesses”
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-hwTvrY1FI
I thought CrossTalk got rid of their voice services due to STIR/SHAKEN and the costs associated with doing it? So the $300/month cost for DID and usage is coming from where? Is that $300/month including the taxes/fees that go along with it? What about the costs of the E911 location fees? Are those included as well? Does the cost of the DID also include CNAM lookups?
In regards to the PBX, the monthly hosting fees on are top of the $300. Doesn’t matter how much, there is a fee. Does that fee include maintenance and updates? Does it include modifications, additions, support? Are there additional fees for services?
Comparing these two things is an apples and oranges game. Yes one does cost more than the other but it’s not a DID/usage only comparison. At the end of the day that $300 isn’t going to be $300, it’s going to be more.
That said, I’m not a fan of RingCentral or how they conduct business. I’ve moved some unhappy customers from them, not to a PBX but a lateral move from one cloud platform to another.
I believe they got rid of their Crosstalk Trunking.
That’s correct, he explains that here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycGPHG_ANrE He still does freepbx implementations.
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