In reply to a post by DaveJ:

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

I suggest that you ask Voipfone if they can do what you want.

I didn't like the way they locked down the phone inhibiting my ability to add additional hosting providers and they insisted I had to use their own hardware and have a broadband service from them.Contract length was far too long.

Strange. I've used Voipfone for work for coming up four years now, and moved the home connection over about 18 months back, and they don't do any of those things. Use what hardware you want, mix providers, pay monthly, use your existing broadband.

I would love to have a chat with you. My voipfone number with them is 30204177.

trolleybus

What please was the outcome?

NJSS

Well I posed the question:
Which VoIP provider can offer with their product these features?
1. BLF
2. LDAP
3. UK Calls package to landlines and mobiles
4. Has no restrictions with hardware used
5. Importing and exporting cherished numbers
6. Auto attendant with day/night switch

For me it was crucial to have items 4 and 1 which seriously impacted on choice of hosted provider. There were two companies in the frame with one discarded immediately because they wanted a five year tie-in. So it was Voipfone I went for. I may have had a wish list, but apparently you can�t have it all from any one provider.

Voipfone currently don't have option 6 but the feature will be coming sometime in the future, For LDAP it looks as though I would have to run my own server and I may well get round to doing just that sometime in the future. Voipfone do have call plans but they could well cost more than PAYG. As the same hardware was being reconfigured for their service, stored numbers were preserved.

Effective you have a control panel to set up your system but help is available from Voipfone if needed. Then you go to each SIP device and enter the appropriate credentials. Do not use the supplied wizards available from Voipfone.

The issue is you don't want to go through the same exercise again by changing providers so an initial choice of hosted providor is crucial. We have 26 Extensions, 30 Voice Numbers, 1 Fax Number, 9 Call Groups, 6 IVR Departments and Cloud Call Recording. The service goes out to 7 sites. We handle about 3000 calls each month and make extensive use of call diverting.

Personally I am reasonably happy with Voipfone but it has taken almost a year to fine tune the set up. My real gripe is the cost of calls to UK mobiles coming in at 10ppm; way above what is charge on other systems. Our 'rental' is around £130 pm with Call charges and recording costing about £170 a month.

SIP devices in use:
snomD375/8.9.3.88
DrayTek UA-1.2.3 Vigor2860 Series 3.8.9.1_BT
snom360/8.7.3.25
N300 IP/42.243.00.000.000
Algo-8180/2.6 Kernel/r5
Algo-8180/2.7.4 Kernel/r5
DrayTek UA-1.2.3 Vigor2830 Series 3.8.8.2_sb_232201
Acrobits SIPIS (www.acrobits.net)
snom320/8.7.5.35
In most cases SIP devices use PoE

In general each site has two broadband services using a mixture of Zen, TalkTalk Business and Cloadscape. UPS units are designed for an half hour service after which the failover is to PSTN.

Many thanks.

NJSS