How many 'voip accounts' do I need on a SIP phone?

[KSComs]

My surname really is Jetson.

Peter

Peter, I'm quite happy to discuss with you a solution, if you dont mind an opinion from an ol' bloke like me with a 35 year telco history.

Kevin

[tsim]

The company I work for currently has an Exicom/Goldstar key system, with 5 PSTN lines and 16 extensions. It is very much on its last legs. Despite an almost complete lack of information around on this system, over the years I have managed to work out how to program it, although I'm far from an expert.

The company is now interested in installing an IP PBX - firstly as more or less a drop-in replacement for what we have now (as much as is possible), and secondly to likely eventually add VOIP trunks.

The company already deals with Alloy, so it seemed natural to look at Alloy's IP PBX range, and the Quadro 6L looked like the perfect match. However, just as I was about to recommend it, it disappeared from the epygi web pages, and I have since found out that it has been discontinued.

The Quadro M8L looked to be the next best match, but it's a lot more expensive and has features that we will never use. The 2x and a 6FXO gateway has also been suggested, as you will know since you are also following my other thread on this forum.

We currently have one completely separate voip line installed here (from our ISP iiNet), using a Linksys PAP2 ATA and a DECT cordless phone. We have this line purely for test purposes, to see how well (or otherwise) a VOIP line compares to a PSTN line, quality-wise.

We have an ADSL2+ Annex M internet connection, and we're perhaps just 200m from the local (Ormond) telephone exchange, so it's a high-speed connection.

Does that answer your "Pjetson who ever you are"? Hopefully that question was just a quip of some kind and not an indication of animosity.

I really am legitimately interested in a Quadro IP PBX, but I also have questions. My apologies to others following this thread if my explanation of "who I am" is off topic.

Peter

Hi Peter,

We have implemented a number of Quadros to replace similar older PABX configurations and found that the basic 2 line IP handset works well for the average user with dependance on voicemail, call hunting and queueing where applicable. Only exception is for the Reception function that may require more lines as stated by Kevin. The many feature-sets in Quadro IP PBX very often allow user to go back to a simple 1 line configuration with call hunting or fwd to extension/vmail as required.

It all boils down to what your actual business requirements are and your analysis, given the feature-sets to use, in putting forward a more superior solution. From our experience not many users can or like to 'multi-task' in attending to more that one phone conversation and utilizing the feature-sets in the Quadro, the new simplified solution works better.

Hope the above makes sense.

Regards/Sim

[Lalisingh]

The question is, with the SIP phones (we're considering Yealink), how many 'voip accounts' do I need on each phone? Common sense suggests just one voip account is all you need, because the phone registers with the M8L, and the M8L handles everything else, like call hold and call transfer.

However, I read somewhere on the web that you need one 'voip account' on each phone for each 'potential' call on the phone - so if you had one call in progress and one call on hold, you'd need two 'voip accounts' on each phone. That doesn't sound right to me, but is it true?

So, as far as running a system as I've described on an M8L, do I need IP phones with one voip account, or two, or six, or whatever?

Regards, and thanks in advance,
Peter

If you are happy with the five out going lines then you need five PSTN(FXO) or equivalent SIP trunks.

As far as the phone is concerned the very first thing you define in Epygi for an IP phone is the line appearance which is the number of simultaneous calls supported by the SIP phone. A snom M9 for instance supports 2. Have not used the Yealinks to comment. So you can hold and transfer or call out. So line appearance should not be confused with out going PSTN/SIP trunks.

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[WandaHamilton]

There are numerous alternatives open to you from IP telephones with 6 lines to two lines. By and by, most clients just need 1 line however having extra lines can be valuable relying upon the job of the client.