Quick Newbie question....Please Help

[cowboy_ibi]

Hello All,

First of all just want to say love the Obi110, setup was a breeze. Much props to everyone here and all the advanced users for helping newbie's like me out.

I have a small office with a 2 line phone sytem. I have Obi and google voice, linked to line 1 and it works great.

I then setup another google voice account with another phone number. Is the easiest way to setup a 2 line system in my office to just buy another Obi100 device, plug it into the router and hook it up to line 2?

For example, if my office manager is on line 1, I want to be able to pick up the phone without interupting his call, hit the line 2 button on my phone and call out.

I read through the 18 pages in the forum and couldnt find a answer. I am looking for simplicity, and dont mind spending another 40 bucks on another obi device to get a second line that is independant of the first.

Would that be the easiest thing?

Thanks in advance

[QBZappy]

cowboy_ibi,

Hi, two OBi's programmed to call forward each other on busy or no answer would give you a two line phone system. The main tel number would reach the 1st OBi. You will not be able to do call xfers with the OBi.

If you wanted that feature using OBi's you could get a cordless multiset phone system. They have built in music on hold, and xfer capability. That would be a cheap and simple office phone system. Panasonic models even have talking CID. I find it very useful to hear who is calling.

[cowboy_ibi]

QBZappy,

Thanks for the reply. As a matter of fact, I just got the Panasonic DECT 6.0 cordless set. To transfer a call all we used to do is hit Hold, then designate which handset you wanted to send the call to (handset 1-4) and it would ring that handset on the same line as the original call.

So from what it sounds like from your post, I should be able to just buy another Obi unit, plug it in set it up with the second GV number and plug it into the Line 2 port on the main unit.

Sweet thanks for the tip!

BTW- if there are any other small business owners out there that have multi line setups, any tips for the Newbie would be appreciated.

I going to play with CID settings so I can get it to read our business name instead of "Nevada" as it does now with the current GV number.

[QBZappy]

cowboy_ibi,

Just to clarify. Each GV # gives you two voice channels. This gives you the ability to have 2 concurrent calls on each #, in any direction (outgoing or incoming). Each OBi box can handle 2 GV accounts giving you ability to receive up to 4 incoming calls. This setup gives you a kind of a 4 line phone system. There are some limitations compared to a PBX system. The trade off is that it is very simple to setup the hardware. The hardest part is deciding how you want to set up the call flow, and what features of the OBi you want to use.
EX: Incoming calls simultaneously ringing attached phone+cell, Call back, etc...

Once you get that "simplified" setup working and if you ever needed more call channels, the OBi has an advanced feature called gateways. You can read up on this feature in the forum.

[cowboy_ibi]

QBZappy,

Thanks again for the clarification. I just did a forum search on "gateways" and all the stuff that came back was way over my head. I'll be honest all this stuff is like greek to me!

I realize that if I was more tech/phone savvy I could set it up so that I could make multiple lines/calls and such with the 1 existing obi unit. However, for simplicity sake would my original suggestion also work?

In other words, if I hook up a second Obi unit to the router and then hook up the phone line to the line 2 port on the base unit of my phone, would that effectively give me 2 lines with 2 seperate numbers?

I realize its probably overkill, but hey honestly I pretty proud of myself for being able to set up a GV account and a Obi account and making the first line work!

Thanks again