PBX Servers?

[eacollin]

Just wondering what PBX Servers are folks using to run their Voipo Services on and what kinds of lessons have your learned from this experience?

Have you saved money running your own PBX be it software or hardware based PBX?

[genxweb]

Just wondering what PBX Servers are folks using to run their Voipo Services on and what kinds of lessons have your learned from this experience?

Have you saved money running your own PBX be it software or hardware based PBX?

I am running it on the following with no issues (ALL ASTERISK BASED)

PBX in a Flash
Elastix
Incredible PBX
Trixbox

So far no issues with configuration. My only wish is that Voipo would offer the ability to increase the channels above 2 even if there is a slight fee increase. This would allow us to offer small business the ability to purchase less DIDs (trunks basically) to have multiple inbound outbound calls at the same time.

For example I have a client that was thinking about switching to my service but I would have to buy 10 DIDS to get 10 SIP credentials to configure 10 trunks. All this to make sure he is able to send and receive up to 10 simultaneous calls.

[VOIPoTim]

I am running it on the following with no issues (ALL ASTERISK BASED)

PBX in a Flash
Elastix
Incredible PBX
Trixbox

So far no issues with configuration. My only wish is that Voipo would offer the ability to increase the channels above 2 even if there is a slight fee increase. This would allow us to offer small business the ability to purchase less DIDs (trunks basically) to have multiple inbound outbound calls at the same time.

For example I have a client that was thinking about switching to my service but I would have to buy 10 DIDS to get 10 SIP credentials to configure 10 trunks. All this to make sure he is able to send and receive up to 10 simultaneous calls.

There actually are no channel limits or trunks for resellers. You can receive as many simultaneous calls on a single account/registration as your equipment/PBX can handle.

[GreenLantern]

sounds great!

[VOIPoTim]

I've got my business line installed on 2 routers, using all 4 jacks, running to a 4 line phone system.

Works GREAT! :)

YMMV

Glad to hear.

[eacollin]

I've got my business line installed on 2 routers, using all 4 jacks, running to a 4 line phone system.

Works GREAT! :)

YMMV

Hi just wondering what PBX are you using and any thoughts you'd like to give on how is runs for your setup?

Thanks

[uf_shane]

I am currently reviewing 3cx... Windows based and looks to be a really good revenue stream

[GreenLantern]

Hi just wondering what PBX are you using and any thoughts you'd like to give on how is runs for your setup?

Thanks
I'm using a panasonic cordless extention phone. The kind you find at Office Depot and such. I just turn off the voicemail feature and let VOIPo handle that.

3CX is very powerful, but needs a LOT of configuration.

[uf_shane]

Learning 3CX is worth the return I believe. But yes it is a lot of configuration.

[tristatevoip]

I am looking into 3cx and it does look very profitable. And looks very clunky Does anyone have it working with voipo service yet.

[uf_shane]

Yes I am testing now, acutally able to run it completely off a laptop... I am quite impressed.

[cfkane]

There actually are no channel limits or trunks for resellers. You can receive as many simultaneous calls on a single account/registration as your equipment/PBX can handle.

I'm a bit confused. I read in the TOS that PBX software wasn't allowed. I'm guessing now that running Asterisk is only banned on the residential end, but okay for the resellers. Is that correct?

If so, I'd love to hear specifics as to how people are implementing Asterisk boxes in the reseller program. I suppose an Incredible PBX box + Voipo would be an ideal solution for a small company running 10+ lines.

Thanks!

[uf_shane]

I would highly recommend you do not sell an unlimited plan and offer a PBX with it... you will be loosing money very quickly...

If you are going to offer you need to come up with a formula that makes sense on how many concurrent calls can run and how many minutes that business is going to be on the phone.

Then create a plan around that.

[genxweb]

On the PBX I offer my unlimited plans are soft caped so that when they hit xyz minutes then there could be additional charges. if you look in the voipo usage they have a line that reads close to the same. Also I hold all clients responsible for the security of their pbx unless my company manages it. if we manage it and the system is abused we bite the cost.

[eacollin]

I am currently reviewing 3cx... Windows based and looks to be a really good revenue stream

Where do you have it installed - are you using a leased server with a dedicated ip? Whats your setup?

[uf_shane]

Currently running it on a Laptop with no issues... it is quite amazing, but I will offer a box with it or putting on the cloud.

[Zudix]

Hi, I am looking at running Trixbox CE because it should be able to integrate into my CRM. Does anyone have any thoughts on using Trixbox? Is there any documentation on Voipo set up on a PBX?

[genxweb]

Here is a link to a tutorial I wrote for my customers to configure systems like trixbox, pbxinaflash, elastix and other pbx systems that are using freepbx.

http://www.voipmyway.com/docs/voipmyway_asterisk.pdf

[genxweb]

Here is a link to a doc I wrote to get your freepbx based pbx working, this works on trixbox, pbxinaflash, elastix and others.

http://www.voipmyway.com/docs/voipmyway_asterisk.pdf

[pcEggheads.com]

Does anyone have trixbox configuration information to use VOIPo as a trunk?

--L

[genxweb]

My doc will work on trixobx as well. it will work on any freepbx based setup.

[gatorsean]

yep, great how to article Michael wrote!

[burris]

My doc will work on trixobx as well. it will work on any freepbx based setup.

I just happened to glance at your re-seller web site....EXCELLENT

[genxweb]

I just happened to glance at your re-seller web site....EXCELLENT

Thanks, I feel it is pretty stream lined but some people still have some issues. I find you cant please all.

[GreenLantern]

There actually are no channel limits or trunks for resellers. You can receive as many simultaneous calls on a single account/registration as your equipment/PBX can handle.

Hi Tim, I just want to make sure everyone is clear on this.

By default, all accounts come configured with 2 channels, correct? So a 3rd call (in or out) will result in a busy signal, not voicemail or failover.

If we want more than 2 channels, we just have to email reseller@voipo.com and request it.

Something for the wish list would to display the current channel limit for each account in its details page. That way we'll know that it has been set correctly for that customer's needs.

FYI: Most of my customers are using BYOD equipment that utilize 3 to 20 channels. I've got a bunch that I need to have updated. Going forward, I'll submit channel requests right after I create new accounts.

[semcclure98]

So far I would have to say I like the service with switchbox. lol
It's so easy just put the disk in.

[timreichhart]

Well if anybody got freeswitch to work with this let me know I been trying to get freeswitch and could not keep it registered all the time.

[GreenLantern]

Question about the PBX setup...

If I understand correctly, genxweb mentions creating multiple trunks in order to enable multiple simultaneous calls.

Is that necessary, or even possible, in freepbx? It seems like creating a single, multichannel trunk accomplishes the same thing.

I ask because I've recently had a lot of problems with "all circuits are busy" messages with several customers, all starting last week.

I'm wondering if I should try creating multiple trunks with the same account, rather than one multiple channel trunk.

[StanAccy]

Ive got a trunk up and running, but Im struggling trying to get the MWI notifications to the phone (Freepbx, Asterix 11)

What configs have people use to configure the MWI? I see the UDP NOTIFY packets coming from Voipo and hitting my Asterisk box.
I tried to subscribe to VMail notifications, but Voipo's server is replying with a "Method not allowed", error 405.

Im using Cisco 7970, and apart from the MWI everything is working great.

Any tips?

[GreenLantern]

Stan, you might have better luck posting that question on a FreePBX forum. But generally speaking, your pbx does not normally monitor the voipo mailbox. Rather, your extension phones monitor their own individual mailboxes on the pbx. You could setup one of the Cisco phones with a direct connection to the voipo line on one of the additional Cisco accounts, then it might monitor the voipo trunk voicemail box for you. Good luck.

[StanAccy]

Stan, you might have better luck posting that question on a FreePBX forum. But generally speaking, your pbx does not normally monitor the voipo mailbox. Rather, your extension phones monitor their own individual mailboxes on the pbx. You could setup one of the Cisco phones with a direct connection to the voipo line on one of the additional Cisco accounts, then it might monitor the voipo trunk voicemail box for you. Good luck.

Thanks for the response. I did finally get this working.
Cisco 7960/7961/7940 have a working NAT implementation in their SIP firmware so they can talk directly to Voipo over my NAT. However, the 7970 has a totally screwed up NAT implementation so I had to put Asterisk in between to handle the NAT correctly. I also configured the Cisco 7970 extension (Im running FreePBX/Asterisk in Device mode, not User mode) to check a virtual mailbox setup on Asterisk, and then I told Asterisk to allow the unsolicited SIP MWI packets that Voipo sends out to all its registered SIP connections (the Grandstream device and the Asterisk server). Voipo's server does not support MWI Subscription (there's an RFC for this) so you have to tell Asterisk to allow the unsolicited MWI SIP NOTIFY packets. You also have to tell Asterisk to relax its SIP packet checking constraints since the SIP NOTIFY packet coming from Voipo is not valid and Asterisk simply drops it by default.

I used Asterisk 11.x (latest), running FreePBX (latest at time of writing) and a Cisco 7970 with 8.5.4 firmware (and I tried a *lot* of different firmwares). My firewall in between Asterisk and the internet is pfSense 2.x. Nothing special configured on the firewall (no SIP ALG, no siproxyd etc), just open UDP 5060 to forward to Asterisk server, and UDP RTP ports (I opened a range of 20) to also forward to Asterisk.

Set your trunk register string in Asterisk, the extension mailbox needs to be altered, and then tell Asterisk to allow unsolicited NOTIFY SIP packets and relax its SIP packet checking, and finally tell Asterisk how to link the unsolicited MWI NOTIFY packets to the virtual mailbox that the extension is listening on.

One other aspect - I configured my 7970 with 2 lines (I have two separate Voipo accounts). In order to get the unsolicited MWI notifications to work for two separate lines, you have to register the line 2 trunk within Asterisk to talk to a different host/port combination at Voipo. You can vary either the host and/or port. Fortunately Voipo accepts SIP registrations on UDP port 5061. This is vital since Asterisk uses the remote host/port combination to key off the unsolicited MWI NOTIFY packets (not the internal contents of the SIP packet - there's already a feature request logged to improve this in Asterisk). Once you do that, you can get the MWI light on the 7970 to light up when you have mail in either mailbox (given a suitable phone SEP<MAC Addr>.xml config). I also had to open up UDP port 5061 on my firewall to account for the second line.

PM me for config details if anyone wants to know more - I spent a heck of a lot of time on getting this working but now it works great and the 7970 is a great upgrade from the 7961 and 7960 we were using before.

[GreenLantern]

Aha, that makes a lot more sense now. I didn't fully understand what you were running into before. Great workaround, but wow, a lot of work.

So all of this was unique to the 7970? I haven't noticed any trouble with MWI for multiple accounts with other phones. But I rarely use Cisco. Cisco (and Polycom) seem overly complicated to me.

[StanAccy]

Aha, that makes a lot more sense now. I didn't fully understand what you were running into before. Great workaround, but wow, a lot of work.

So all of this was unique to the 7970? I haven't noticed any trouble with MWI for multiple accounts with other phones. But I rarely use Cisco. Cisco (and Polycom) seem overly complicated to me.

Yes, just the 7970. My 7960s and 7961s have worked fine for well over a year. Cisco made some intentional changes to the SIP firmware on the 7970 that broke all sorts of NAT related stuff. While the change was technically within the RFC spec, it broke most direct connections traversing NAT. They claim it was a change made for security, but I just don't see it how it makes anything more secure. But it does make things more difficult for you to use a 7970 outside of a Cisco Call Manager environment... go figure.

Now that I know how, setting up another one is simple. It didn't help that Voipos NOTIFY packets are missing a required SIP header, and it didnt help that Voipo doesnt support MWI subscription, and it didn't help that Cisco intentionally screwed up NAT functionality. I spent a lot of time thinking the phone specific config file was wrong (it didn't help that Cisco reports nothing for an invalid config), but as it turns out, once you get Asterisk running with NAT, and the trunk mapping correct (on different UDP ports for different lines), pretty much any of the available configs for the 7970 out on the internet work fine.