Startups with offices: what about phones?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=62215

by bdr • 19 years ago

3 7 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

So there are all these expensive business-plan phone systems with all kinds of features. Do you actually end up needing all that crap? What kind of phone system does a small web startup really need?

danielha• 19 years ago

Mobile plan.

Free nights and weekends.

zcoelius• 19 years ago

No need for fancy phones unless you are a heavy telephone sales operation. A web startup ought to be able to get away with mobile phones or a Vonage line (well until they die anyway). At Triggit we use vonage.

alaskamiller• 19 years ago

Why bother with a fancy phone system? Who calls you? Do you call each other in the office? Do you want to appear as if you all have extensions?

This is kind of pointless. A mobile phone is fine. Get GrandCentral or an online fax/voicemail number to set up a layer of control.

ballred• 19 years ago

getjive.com - $30/month/phone, all the big-business looking features you'll need. We use them and they've been great.

jple• 19 years ago

VoIP + Asterisk is the way forward. With a cheap linux server and cheap SIP phones or adapters you can easily do nearly everything an expensive phone system can do if you really need it.

Asterisk does need a bit of setup but it's not that hard for someone technically minded.

BTW, If you do any kind of conference calls get a proper conferencing phone, they are kinda expensive but so much better quality than speakerphone on a normal phone.

nostrademons• 19 years ago

Previously employer used Cisco VoIP phones over SpeakEasy service. Phones themselves were ok; the service sucked. We had several outages and recurring problems with sound quality.

llopis• 19 years ago

We're just using Skype for conference calls. The cost of SkypeOut and SkypeIn is something like $20/year or something. Works fine for us.

Startups with offices: what about phones?

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