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Obihai 110 Setup For Small Business

Started by tonyka, August 25, 2015, 02:51:30 PM

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tonyka

Hi Everyone,

I've just setup a Obi202 at home and am getting tempted to try doing the same for business.  I've been contemplating the Ooma, but I think the features are equivalent for Obi and the costs are much less (the learning curve is a little more steep).

Can anyone help me with the following questions I have:

1. What Obihai would be best suited for me.  I'm learning towards the 110 and keeping a standard landline available to make sure I still have phone access if the internet goes down.

2. How many devices would I need?  It's a small business where we 3 physical phones.  I would like to have each device have its own extension and voicemail and the auto attendant route the calls as need be.  I've read the setup on the auto attendant and will take a stab at getting it setup properly once the time comes.  For my small business setup, do I need to buy an Obihai 110 for each of my 3 phones (the phones are not cordless and I don't want to buy a cordless set at the moment).

3. Will the features of my phone such as Line 1, Line 2 still work?  ie. I'm on the phone on line 1, and if another caller tries calling, Line 2 would begin ringing.

Thanks for your support

azrobert

If you want to access a PSTN line you can use an OBi110 or an OBi2xx with an OBiLine adapter. You need 3 phone ports to connect 3 phones. You could use 3 OBi110s and all 3 phones will be able to access the PSTN line with the default configuration. Another option would be an OBi202 and an OBi110, but you would need configuration changes for the OBi202 to access the PSTN line.

The Auto Attendant is not meant to function like you want. See this thread:
http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=10297.0

Do your phones have 2 lines each? If they are 2 line phones then you need a total of 6 phone ports. You could use 3 OBi202s or the OBi508vs has 8 phone ports.  I not too familiar with the OBi508vs, but I believe it has an Auto Attendant like you need. Using a single phone port for each phone, you would get the call waiting tone with a 2nd call.

tonyka

Thanks for the reply Azrobert  :)  I will look into the obi508vs instead.  The Obi504vs would not work for me right?  It looks like its capable of 4 phone lines.  If I were to use the obi508vs, would I plug in 6 phone jacks to get 2 lines on each of my phones?

azrobert

I never owned an OBi5 series device, so anything I say might not be accurate.

The OBi504 looks like it only has 4 FSX ports, so you won't be able to use it for 6 lines.

I assume your 2 line phones only have a single 4 wire cord. Each line uses only 2 wires. The OBi202's phone port 1 has 4 active wires. The inner pair is Line 1. The outer pair is hard wired to Phone 2 port's inner pair, so when you plug a single 4 wire cord into Phone 1 port you are connected to both line 1 and line 2. I assume the OBi508vs has the same function.

The OBi508vs does not have a FXO port to connect to a PSTN line, so you will need to purchase an OBiLine adapter. It does have a PSTN failover port, but this is used to connect to a PSTN line only when a power outage occurs.

tonyka

I just bought the unit you suggested from Amazon (I'm getting nervous thinking about trying to set it up lol).  This might be a silly question, but do I need to sign up with a freepbx or asteriks?  Or can I get by with a vestalink or freephoneline?  I only really need one extension and this extension can even be another phone number that's not accessible to anyone except the AA.  Does that make sense?  I've been going through the forums for over 3 days now.  You're a superstar azro :D

azrobert

Do you want just one phone number? Do you want all inbound calls routed to the Auto Attendant and then have the AA send calls to the correct person? Each simultaneous call on a phone number requires a channel. 6 channels will support 2 simultaneous calls to each person. It's unlikely that each person will have 2 calls at the same time, so you probably only need 4 or 5 channels. You said each person should have their own voicemail. All calls are coming in on a single line, so I'm not sure how VM would work. If the service provider has an AA function, you could setup 3 extensions and have the service provider route calls to the correct extension. Now each extension can have a VM account. Asterisk can also solve this problem.

You need a service provider that will support all your requirements. I have limited experience with different service providers and not familiar with FPL or Vestalink, so I'm not the best to ask. I have a free Callcentric account and think they have all the features you need. You can setup 3 extensions. They have an IVR function (AA) that can route the calls to the correct extension. Each extension can have a VM account. Inbound numbers have 3 channels, but you can purchase more. I have a free account and have not used most of these features, so perform your own due diligence before you purchase anything.

http://www.callcentric.com/features/

Callcentric is not a cheap provider. If anyone else has a provider suggestion, please chime in.