Install new IP PBX, How to choose the right UCM

suggestion
#1

Hello,
I want to install an IP PBX system in the company
I have 150 employees now, of whom 90 use IP phones
I have 3 separate branches
There are 60 IP phones in the main branch, and there are (5 landlines and one cell phone) to receive external calls from customers
In each of the other two branches, there is one landline and one mobile phone to receive outside calls from customers

Required:

  • Connecting all landlines and mobile lines (mentioned above) to receive external calls from customers and record them in one place (the call center unit in the main branch).

  • That any employee in any branch can make internal audio calls and contact any employee in any other branch internally.

  • A limited number of employees (managers) call the company from home via cell phone to any of the branches, (or even from outside the country) so that it is as if it is inside the company.

  • What are the lowest equipment (UCMs, Gateways,… etc) that can do this? and What are recommended equipment?

Sorry for the length, it may seem complicated because of the too-long explanation, but I think it is actually less complicated than that, especially for the great experts here.

What do you recommend?

I appreciate any information from you
I hope that the topic will be useful to all distinguished members of this wonderful forum.

Thank you so much

#2

How much do you want to spend? Hardware/technical assistance/3rd party hardware ?

#3

Will move 5 landlines to SIP or not ? If not you need at least 5 FXO ports.
You can try do it cheap with GXW4104 + UCM with 2 FXO but this will make configuration much harder.

  • gateway for cell to sip (not GS)

If landline go SIP then lowest model is fine propably.

Rest are network limitation and no problem for UCM. You need VPN between branches and UCM, maybe VN on router to access login to ucm from external.

What you need to know is PEAK calls at same time as this is real limitation here, but lowest should be enough with normal company calls.

#4

Capital costs are one thing and I whole heartedly agree with @Marcin and @scottsip that you could do cheaper with smallest UCM and external FXO gateway - depending on if you are ok porting your analog lines in to SIP trunks. Setting up of Wave for the managers is pretty easy on a cell phone, this can also be the end points at the other branches if they already have a laptop or cell phone with a headset. Desk phone for the remote offices would be optional, same with their FXO unless internet/cell coverage is sketchy there. If you have the internet bandwidth and stability in your location, SIP trunks is the way to go.

If you don’t have excellent internet, you might instead (for simplicity in setup and later maintenance) do the UCM6308 so you can have your 5x FXO and just have one appliance to program. Greatly simplifies programming initially and later for maintenance.

For office phones, some really good mid-range phones like the GXP2160 or GXP2170, or the GRP2614 / GXP2615 are well priced and featured, all POE powered (but come with a power cube for locations without POE), gig network ports, some with bluetooth etc. GXP being older is still well supported and very few bugs. GRP is much newer but is getting some good firmware updates with bug fixes, is marketed as “carrier grade”.

Low range phones that I favor are the GXP2135 and GRP2613 and have been pretty problem free.

But really, for phones you’re just chosing between display size, number of buttons, and maybe bluetooth (for headsets) connectivity, functionally they are all pretty similar.

You didn’t mention a door phone - do you have a need for video door phone / card access control at any doors in your main office?

#5

Hello Mr. Alex,

I agree with the opinion of Mr Kevin, Mr Marcin and Mr Marty. However, there are things to remember if spending is too minimal for voip equipment, then there must be deficiencies that will make you dizzy because you have to spend more money to cover these deficiencies.
My opinion is as follows:

  1. For the main branch, you can use UCM6308 as mentioned by Mr. Marty above and for Cell phones/mobile phones, you can use the gateway for cell to sip (not GS) as mentioned by Mr. Marcin above or install gswave lite if the cell the phone/mobile phone is only used in the office (not taken out of the office). If the cell phone/mobile phone can be used in the office or used outside the office, then you can install Zoiper or similar products and for this you can use a VPN connection or use the ucm remoteconnect feature (if the cell phone/mobile phone is outside the office) )

  2. For the other 2 branches, you can use UCM6301 and for those cell phones/mobile phones you can do the same thing with the main branch above (see number 1)

  3. You need a stable VPN connection or you can use the UCM remoteconnect feature to connect the three UCM units installed in the 3 branch offices and for telephone connections outside the office (for cell/mobile phone)

  4. For recording storage, you can use the NAS in the main branch office or you can use gdms cloud storage which is operated in the main branch office

  5. For IP phones, you can use the gxp21xx series or grp 2614/2615 mentioned by Mr. Marty above and you can use the extension module (GXP2200EXT or GBX20) so you don’t get headache to managing contacts on the phone

  6. For limited number of employees (managers), they can use zoiper or similar products. In my opinion it’s better to use gs wave for desktop

That’s just my opinion, I hope it’s useful for other users

Best regards,

Ray

#6

The above sentence is the constricting item that dictates how the call flows must be. Given that ALL CALLS will be recorded and that in doing so the recordings must be done at one location, then the implication is that only one PBX will serve the enterprise.

Additionally, there is the question of how you bring the analog line at each of the two remote branches back to the UCM at the main office where the recording will take place.

It is also not clear what the branch mobile phone connectivity is. If they are used to make and take cellular calls direct from your mobile provider, then that is outside the scope of the PBX system as the calls are occurring over a completely different, isolated network. The only way to accommodate the mobile phone would be to get the appropriate cellular to SIP gateway and then take the SIM cards from the phone(s) and install in the gateway and connect the gateway to the PBX, but this then renders the mobile phones useless as the calls are now going into the PBX where IP based phones can handle the calls, but not the mobile phones unless you get them new SIMs with new numbers and install a softphone (WAVE or other) onto them.

There are likely some things about you locale of which we are not aware and you will have to determine the suitability of such a plan such as:

  1. Is the available Internet fast enough and reliable enough to deliver a steady stream of data throughout the enterprise (all locations interacting with one another and then stream to and from the Internet)? Can VPNs between sites be reliably maintained and with the speeds needed?
  2. Are there any reliable SIP trunking providers where you might be able to move away from analog lines and consolidate to SIP?
  3. If you must stay analog, are the providers of the lines able to physically move the numbers to the main building so that the required recordings can be more easily accommodated rather than having to peer the lines back to the PBX with HTs? The HTs add cost and complexity.
  4. How are the mobile phones being handled now with regard to the recording requirement? I assume they are not, so can you port the mobile numbers to a SIP provider or analog provider?

Recording adds a load to the PBX as it must be able to transcode each call and then record the calls to a medium for storage that can be later retrieved. However, the amount of storage in the UCM is finite and you may need to consider an archival device by which you can move the recordings from the UCM to the storage device. Each minute of recording using .Wav as the codec (.wav files) is approximately 1MB. There is no way to provide any meaningful stat as to capacity as the system shares storage with all the other aspects that take place - sys logs, CDRs, op logs, how many calls, how many minutes, etc., and how long must the logs, recordings and all need to be maintained?

#7

Thank you all, I am very pleased with your interaction and I am sorry for the delay in participating due to the difficult circumstances I went through.

I will try to answer your important questions, and I will answer in order, God willing.

I do not know the specific details, but like any company I want to achieve my goal with the lowest possible costs, for example, to use the five landlines, I will need a UCM with 8 FXO Ports, which is too big for my other needs. It is possible for me to come with a one port UCM and Gateway with 8 ports, which will reduce a lot of costs…
And if the GXP phones will do the trick, I will not buy the GRP phones, and so on…

What do you mean by move landlines to SIP? How do?

Or maybe GXW4108 + UCM with 1 FXO like UCM6300A right? What do you think?

How is it possible landlines go SIP?

Is there a way to connect the branches using the UCMs and the Internet only?

The number of concurrent calls in the company is not large, so it will not occupy my mind because, as you say, less UCM will do the trick.

It’s a great device, but it’s very expensive, and I can’t afford it.

Regarding office phones, if the GXP system will work well with the UCM and the cloud, I have no problem with it at all. The important thing is that the phones support POE.

What about GXP1628 or GRP2604P for example?

I did not think of this. If you have some ideas, then wright them please, and I don’t mind presenting them to the administration

I will complete the response to the rest of the experts’ responses in the next reply.

#8

Hello Mr. Ray,

Can you explain more, please? deficiencies like what?

If I use a cheaper device like (UCM6300A) for example will there be a problem?

Can you explain more about this point (ucm remoteconnect feature) How and why?

Will I be able to connect between branches with UCM devices only?.. What is the impediment to using the UCM6301 in all branches, including the main branch?

not available

Is this possible? How??

What about GXP1628 or GRP2604P for example?

#9

Is it possible to bring a small Gateway in each of the two remote branches and connect landlines to it and connect these Gateways to the UCM in the main branch in some way (I don’t know it)?

This is exactly what I would like to do

Sorry, I didn’t understand this sentence.

The internet speed is good, but I don’t think it’s stable enough

No VPN unfortunately.

To my knowledge, there is not.

Unfortunately no.

What do you mean by HTs?

How much storage space does the UCM have?

#10
  1. Landlines will need a FXO gateway at each location to take the analog line from the branch and bring it back into the UCM at a SIP level.
  2. If you remove the SIM card from the existing cell phones to use in the cellular gateway, the cellular phones will not work until and unless you get those new SIM cards.
  3. If the Internet is not stable enough for SIP, then how do you intend to use analog gateways to accommodate the analog lines over the Internet?

HTs are ATA - Analog Terminal Adapters.

The UCM has some storage, but how much is dependent on how much is needed to configure the PBX functionality and how long you intend to keep the logs, CDRs, Voicemails and other. You should not use the UCM for long-term storage.

#11

Hello Mr. Alex,

Thank for your reply. This is my answer to your reply:

For example, If your gateway in main branch office is experiencing problems or damage, what do you do? what happens to the other 4 landlines if your gateway is damaged or has problems? Even though you only have one fxo port on your ucm. And then if using a gateway and ucm, then you have to set up and configure the gateway and ucm. If you can’t set up and configure these two devices correctly then you will experience problems such as the gateway not being able to connect to ucm properly and so on as a result you hire a VoIP expert to do this

No problem. You can use this, the most important thing is that you choose a UCM that has an fxo port according to the number of landlines you have at each of your branch offices

You can see how to do this in the link below:
https://documentation.grandstream.com/knowledge-base/ucm-remoteconnect-user-guide/
Why do you use this feature? Because if you don’t have a stable and secure VPN or you don’t have port forwarding using the correct access list, how do you connect your cell phone/mobile phone to UCM when the cell phone is out of office? are you going to rely on miracles from God? Apart from that, the advantage of UCM Remoteconnect is that you don’t have to bother creating and setting up a VPN or port forwarding with the correct access list.

Yes you will. You can see how in the link that I have provided above

No impediment. However, if you use ucm6301 at the main branch office and use the gxw4108 gateway, there are a number of things you need to pay attention to,

  1. If your gateway is experiencing problems or damage, what do you do? what happens to the other 7 landlines if your gateway is damaged or has problems? Even though you only have one fxo port on your ucm? This is one of the disadvantages that I have mentioned before

  2. If using a gateway and ucm, then you have to set up and configure the gateway and ucm. If you can’t set up and configure these two devices correctly then you will experience problems such as the gateway cannot connect to ucm properly and so on, this will waste your time. Unless you are an expert, no problem. Try to compare with you only set up and configure UCM6308/UCM6308a?

This is the problem. how do you connect between ucm in each of your branch offices?
That’s why you can use this ucm remoteconnect feature

See the link that I have provided above and please read carefully

You can use that, no problem even you can use gxp1610/1615. I just to give you best option, that’s all

That’s all my answer, I hope you can understand my answer

Best regards,

Ray

#12

Talk with any sip provider, i will not tell you how it look in US ut in EU we simply ask sip provider and they do all paperwork.

You can try do it cheap with GXW4104 + UCM with 2 FXO but this will make configuration much harder.

Or maybe GXW4108 + UCM with 1 FXO like UCM6300A right? What do you think?

Sure. Just check other reply.

If landline go SIP then lowest model is fine propably.

How is it possible landlines go SIP?

Above, but i’m not sure how it is done in US.

Rest are network limitation and no problem for UCM. You need VPN between branches and UCM, maybe VN on router to access login to ucm from external.

Is there a way to connect the branches using the UCMs and the Internet only?

GDMS pay service (remote connect).

What you need to know is PEAK calls at same time as this is real limitation here, but lowest should be enough with normal company calls.

The number of concurrent calls in the company is not large, so it will not occupy my mind because, as you say, less UCM will do the trick.
[/quote]

Cheapest is ok.

#13

If there is a way to use analog gateways to accommodate the analog lines over the Internet, I can search for a solution to the problem of instability of the Internet
If there is a way tell me, please. How can I connect Gateways in the branches to the UCM in the headquarters?
Thanks

#14

Thank you very much, Mr. @Ray4778

#15

Thank you very much, Mr. @Marcin

#16

Yes, look at the GS website for analog adapters and peering -
https://documentation.grandstream.com/knowledge-base/peering-ht8xx-with-gxw41xx/

But as others have indicated, while it can be done, it adds complexity to your setup, adds additional failure points with the added equipment and will still require a reliable and stable Internet connection.

#17

You’re Welcome Sir