Ten Questions to Ask Your Prospective IP Telephony Supplier
Given the growing popularity of the open source PBX software, Asterisk, many IP telephony suppliers today attempt to color their systems “Open.”
Locked-in or Free-to-choose? How “open” is the IP telephony solution you are considering? Are you being proposed industry-standard components which protect your investment by allowing you to mix and match components and software from other vendors in the future? If your phone system needs change in the future is your only choice to bring in a forklift and remove everything and replace it all? Below are ten questions you can ask to help understand just how “open” a given telephone systems vendor’s solution is.
- Can your solution run on my existing data network?
- How are you proposing to route my calls to the outside world? Can I choose my carrier?
- Who does what on my network, your engineers or my network support specialist?
- Does your call manager software run on a proprietary (your) server, or a standard PC server, i.e. Dell or HP?
- Do I have to buy phones with your brand on them, or can I buy industry-standard IP phones?
- If I find I need functionality in the future your software does not offer, can I keep the phones and server and install someone else’s software on the server that will work with the phones you are proposing?
- Are you on-line and monitoring my system 24×7? How do you respond to an alert?
- What is my total up-front and recurring cost to add another phone?
- Is your software sold a-la-carte or are all functions/options included in one fee?
- Do you accept responsibility for coordinating technical support with my carrier or am I in the middle if my phones don’t work?
David Condra founded Dalcon in 1979 and is CEO today. An electrical engineer, he has specialized in the delivery of IT solutions to business since 1975.
