Startups with offices: what about phones?

3 points·bdr··7 comments

So there are all these expensive business-plan phone systems with all kinds of features. Do you actually end up needing all that crap? What kind of phone system does a small web startup really need?

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Mobile plan.

Free nights and weekends.

VoIP + Asterisk is the way forward. With a cheap linux server and cheap SIP phones or adapters you can easily do nearly everything an expensive phone system can do if you really need it.

Asterisk does need a bit of setup but it's not that hard for someone technically minded.

BTW, If you do any kind of conference calls get a proper conferencing phone, they are kinda expensive but so much better quality than speakerphone on a normal phone.

No need for fancy phones unless you are a heavy telephone sales operation. A web startup ought to be able to get away with mobile phones or a Vonage line (well until they die anyway). At Triggit we use vonage.

Previously employer used Cisco VoIP phones over SpeakEasy service. Phones themselves were ok; the service sucked. We had several outages and recurring problems with sound quality.

We're just using Skype for conference calls. The cost of SkypeOut and SkypeIn is something like $20/year or something. Works fine for us.

getjive.com - $30/month/phone, all the big-business looking features you'll need. We use them and they've been great.

Why bother with a fancy phone system? Who calls you? Do you call each other in the office? Do you want to appear as if you all have extensions?

This is kind of pointless. A mobile phone is fine. Get GrandCentral or an online fax/voicemail number to set up a layer of control.

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