You're researching options for a PBX system to hide about ten lines or so. You PREFER to not rely on VOIP for outbound connections, but VOIP in the office itself is probably ok.. and presumably for office-to-remote office. Your focus (mimicking your bosses orders) is on easy setup, affordability, and reliability of the system (the usual pretty obvious management direction).
Now...where do you go from here?
To travel with a premise based resolution for a small outfit may not be the be the simplest option. The explanation I say that is it isn't essentially an straightforward system to manage, particularly when you're considering linking remote users for an "on net" appearance. There are answers out there for your size venture, however from my expertise they aren't the foremost effective.
An outsourced answer will give you an identical feel and appear, and a lot of additional, of a terribly high finish PBX type solution. It conjointly makes the association of remote users a lot of easier. In many hosted, or outsourced solutions, the necessity for VPN is eliminated, that will be difficult to take care of for voice. Tiny corporations can operate abundant like large enterprises with a simple, outsourced telecommunication service.
Depending on your level of comfort with network setup and management, if you plan to put in and maintain the system yourself, I counsel the vendors discussed below. When in doubt.....get assistance from a skilled who has experience with IP/VoIP desires analysis and platform selection for small to midsized businesses.
You'll be able to maintain your analog POTS lines or whatever affiliation to the PSTN you currently utilize, there's no reason to dropping of that. Most IP based systems nowadays allow you to produce a mixed dialplan, where you can supplement your traditional lines with some VoIP lines (SIP Trunks) that may be leveraged for LD or International calls.
There are various variants of Asterisk that incorporate a graphic user interface that encompasses most administrative tasks like putting in your trunks(lines), making extensions, registering IP phones, putting in auto attendants and myriad other options.
For Asterisk based systems, I might suggest trying out:
trixbox.com
asterisknow.com
switchvox.com
fonality.com
With any of these, your base needs would be the PBX, which is usually a rackmount or midtower server with fairly modest specs (Intel Xeon CPU, 1GB RAM, single or dual SATA onerous drives if you wish RAID, and if you have (8) analog phone lines, you'd want an 8FXO TDM Card integrated into your PBX chassis.
The sole downside with an asterisk based mostly setup is that it requires a ton of work on your part. Definitely do some research on some hosted or managed PBX vendors that service your area. Something on premise will probably not make monetary sense.
If you're wanting for a lot of of an appliance kind solution, I would try talkswitch.com.
Typically speaking .... expect to pay $four hundred-$600 per seat for the PBX, phones, and maybe a managed ethernet switch.
Conjointly, having your internal LAN setup for VoIP is important. You wish to implement an inside QoS (Quality of Service) mechanism, typically a VLAN that segments your IP Phones from your normal bandwidth, so you allocate appropriate bandwidth for the VoIP.
I wouldn't discount voip for outbound connections. Therefore hopefully your "PREFER" isn't a rock solid position...and you're open to outbound VoIP. There are a few sensible managed voip providers out there. Managing your own PBX is not a easy task. You need to understand dial plans, did/dod, voice mail integration. If you wish to do it well, you may want to own a minimum of an obsessive person.... if not team. For ten lines, it'd likely be overkill.
Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.
For 10 users, I'd conjointly take into account using Google Apps [google.com/a].
For your corporations email and calendaring. Why run your own server and have to house backing up your email when you can have Google do it for you. For a true estate business (as an example) you wouldn't worry too much concerning storing your mail on Google's servers. They are not medical records or legal records (a minimum of not thus a lot of that I wouldn't trust google). You'll probably get away with the free customary version.
No matter direction you choose to travel in you do have options. Do your analysis ..... decide too soon "in house" vs "remotely managed" resolution ..... and of course do not forget the boss's direction for "simple setup, affordability, and reliability of the system".
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