Is there a budget IP phone setup?

[Shpaget]

I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but this is what I need:

For my workplace I'm investigating an option of something like IP phone or intercom system, mostly for "in house" communication. We have 4 locations that are somewhat removed from one another, two of them being in the basement where cellphone reception is mediocre to nonexistent, so communicating with guys that are down there requires someone to walk over there and back. The other two locations are currently covered by a regular landline and wireless handsets that have intercom feature. We get our connection to the rest of the world via an optical cable that brings in phone, internet and TV. We would like to keep these services and preferably have the option for phone calls on all four location (both incoming/outgoing and call transfer and conference). We have our wired LAN stuff on all four locations.

It is my understanding that IP phone system would meet our in house comms need, but I'm not sure how does that work with outside calls. We don't need VoIP, we have regular phone line for that, so this system would only need to deal with local phones. How does IP phone setup work in that regards? Do we absolutely need a service provider, or can we use our own local PC to do the server thing?

Help, I'm really clueless.

Now that I think about it, handsets are an option too, but for the two basement locations the signal would need to penetrate several >1m thick brick walls diagonally (20-30 m distance). I'm really not sure if the ones we currently have are strong enough. I'll test it tomorrow, but in any case, these particular ones don't support more than two handsets.

[stibbons]

There are a lot of different options for this, and I doubt I can easily make you less confused, sorry.

3 hours ago, Shpaget said:

It is my understanding that IP phone system would meet our in house comms need, but I'm not sure how does that work with outside calls. We don't need VoIP, we have regular phone line for that, so this system would only need to deal with local phones. How does IP phone setup work in that regards? Do we absolutely need a service provider, or can we use our own local PC to do the server thing?

Important piece of semantics first, "IP phone system" and "VoIP" mean the same thing. What you mean is that you don't want to replace your existing DID service with a VoIP service, and that's fine. The piece of equipment you seem to be looking for is called an "IP PBX". It can run an internal VoIP network with IP phones, or "soft phones" that are basically software running on people's PCs. It will let those soft phones dial each other, as well as act as an interface to your existing phone lines, allowing your IP phones to make and receive external calls as well.

You can build an IP PBX yourself using open source software and your own PC hardware. But it requires extra hardware to terminate the inbound phone lines, a lot of in-depth knowledge and experience, and a fair amount of ongoing maintenance work. I wouldn't recommend exploring this unless you've got an idle programmer who's keen to get their hands dirty building telephony systems. But there are a lot of services around that can sell and set up the system you're looking at.

The cheapest option though is a standalone in-house communication system separate from your existing phones. Team communication apps like Slack and HipChat are free to get started with (although HipChat's voice/video calling features aren't in the free tier  ), they're easy to use and the call quality is decent enough. I really like how easy it is to find/communicate with other people in remote locations using products like these, but I don't know how confronting they can be to non-IT workers.

You can even get started by just setting up Skype accounts for everybody.

(for the sake of transparency: I work for the company that runs HipChat)

[WinkAllKerb'']

4 hours ago, stibbons said:

but I don't know how

you don't know and your an it worker ; ) fun don't you think ?

you'r gonna hate me for this answer but ; ) your missing something very obvious about that ^^ my suggestion reread assimov ^^ the feel of power ; ) and grab two silex and attempt to make fire with them ^^ so :3 then what i m curious about is how long does it took you to make fire ^^ that's failry simple for some you know ^^

Edited April 10, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''
i found the graall, graal not that's a shrubscruberries ni ni ni

[steve_v]

A: Buy an off the shelf IP PBX box.
B: Set up a server yourself, for which you will want to learn Asterisk.

If you only need local calls, and no integration with existing phone lines, there are many LAN chat applications that can do voice+video.

[WinkAllKerb'']

else you can also prey and hope that your brain get magically connected to the sat network without device, but that prolly will never happen  ^^

but that wouldn't be handy anyway and very loud and noisy ^^ kinda like a compass infinitesimal variation in the magnetic fields mess ; ) anyway that could make a cool plot for a book or a movies ^^ but i guess prof xavier and magneto would approve a reboot ^^ without tatoo of course ^^

Edited April 10, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''
lalalala cgi lalalala ntmf lalalala darpa derp lalalala

[kerbiloid]

I don't attend it myself, but the mentioned Asterisk is very popular in Russia.

[WinkAllKerb'']

well speaking of * and obelix .... how to say ... champolion , it's about scribe that overlap here and there ^^ thoose scribe multitasking are so annoyin ^^ kill them all and bury them with pharaoh ^^ might work, may be may be not ^^

Edited April 10, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''

[Shpaget]

Thanks guys.

You've given me some data to start digging.

 

WinkAllKerb, what are you going on about?

[WinkAllKerb'']

i start gettin' bored spending energy speakin' like everyone, so i speak autist again ... and peoples don't like autist kind of talk they never get it ...

also i m gonna soon head back in my cavern and shut up again ^^ adding one more failed attempt to discuss with "normal" peoples ... to the already long list of said attempt ...

thks for asking shp ^^that's kind of you ^^

Edited April 10, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''