BCMountainVOIP IP Phone Equipment Catalog

Selecting the right phones for your use

Office

For the office one has six choices: your present phone with analog adapter, a hard-line IP phone, a computer-based soft phone, a cordless phone, a wifi phone, or a wifi enabled cell phone. The choice depends on the typical working environment and mobility of the user, the quality of audio required from the handset, and budget.

Present handset(s) with a ATA

This option retains the look and feel you currently have. For many this is important, and for others they want anything but. The downside of this option is that individual employees cannot get their own extension with individual voicemail, but the system rings to the cordless phone unit and a general voicemail box. If the organization has phones the employees like, this is a viable option. The use of the organization's current 5.8ghz cordless phones with an ATA often is all a smaller organization requires.

Hardline IP phone

This is a desk based solution the provides services of a standard office desktop phone. Features include: speaker phone, speed dial, etc. The sound quality is generally the highest with this solution, and is the most cost effective per quality.

• GrandStream GXP2000
  

Examples that have gained high reviews include: ........ from the Voxilla Store for less than $100 (see picture) or the Polycom IPxxx with a higher quality speaker phone for less than $200.

Soft phone

A softphone is a computer application that resides on your desktop or laptop computer. To use it you require a headset with a microphone to be plugged into your computer's sound card. All dialing and phone management is done from the computer.

Because the phone is an application, the operating system that you use will dictate your selection of a phone. Windows users have the widest choice, with OSX and Linux users having more limited choices. For examples and free downloads: Counterpath X-lite phone ZOIPER IAX & SIP softphone

We prefer a more traditional feel of the handset, and use softphones only for testing systems. In our experience, the audio usually leaves something to be desired. When we travel or work from a remote location that is wifi-enabled, we use wifi phones. Where these phones work is a call centre environment, allowing the organization to scale horizontally inexpensively, and fully integrate the call routing system with the phone.

Remote Office & Worksite

Mobile

Addition equipment

Analog to Digital Adapter (ATA)

We recommend that the non-profit or small business continue to retain at least on traditional Telco PSTN line into the organization for redundancy and emergency use. This line would have no additional services on it besides local calling out and a local telephone number.

For this line to interact with the BCMountainVOIP hosted phone system, an ATA is required per PSTN line in. We recommend the Linksys SPA3102 for its features and sound quality.

Where to buy

For most organizations, we recommend buying your equipment from either a USA or Canadian supplier and configuring them yourselves with help of our setup guides. For our Canadian customers, ordering from Canadian suppliers are often 10-20% more expensive per item, but the total delivered price is often reasonable once you factor in UPS shipping & brokerage fees, plus Canadian users will receive their phone equipment 1-2 weeks sooner.

The alternative is purchasing pre-configured equipment from BCMountainVOIP.