Considering three CX phone system for 40 person office- a few questions

[ahkim]

Hello Everyone

First, thank you in advance if you're able to answer any of my questions.

I run a small engineering business with 40 people and am considering the 3CX phone system. My IT consultant recommended this system and from my research, it looks like a good solution for us.

Less than five years ago, we spent $20,000 for a Cisco small business system which was a disaster. I'd like to avoid making a mistake so I'm looking to the forum for opinions.

Here is some background information:

• We will start with 35 phones. We will reuse most of our existing Cisco 504G phones.
• I hope we grow to 60 people in the next 3 years.
• We plan to run a dedicated computer for the 3CX software.
• We will go with the 3CX 16 SC PRO edition.
• We plan to use our Comcast business Internet.

The most important questions:

1. Is 3CX a good solution for my business?
2. Is it reliable? not buggy, etc...
3. Will 3CX be around for the foreseeable future? I was shocked that my Cisco product was end of lifed after only four years.
4. We plan to use Appia as our service provider, is that a good option?
5. Are there 3CX consultants that you can recommend if we run into problems?
6. Is our Comcast Internet 100MB fast enough?

Secondary questions - mostly about features:

1. Can you have your desk and cell phone ring at the same time?
2. If yes, can you answer your cell phone and go back to your desk and resume the call on your desk phone?
3. When your desk and cell phone rings, does your cell phone show the caller ID of the caller? (as opposed to your own number)
4. Is there a cordless phone that allows our receptionist to transfer calls? We use a headset to answer wirelessly but she has to go back to her desk to transfer the call.
5. With the desktop app, is there a feature to call phone numbers on a webpage by clicking on the number?

 

[daktur]

Hey Ahkim,

Let's see if I can help you, the answer you wrote on bold I answered in regular and the ones you wrote regular i answered in bold.
The most important questions:

1. Is 3CX a good solution for my business? This is the only point that depends on your evaluation, always remember that you can try it for free limited to 8 SC and 1 trunk
2. Is it reliable? not buggy, etc... So far we have seen that most of the issue are related to hardware and infra structure, not with the software itself. So i would say it's very reliable and stable
3. Will 3CX be around for the foreseeable future? I was shocked that my Cisco product was end of lifed after only four years. Just remeber that once your maintenance license is valid, you will be eligible for all minor and major updates including for newest versions. i.e v14 with a valid maintenance can upgrade to v15 free of charge
4. We plan to use Appia as our service provider, is that a good option? I personally use Broavoice / Phonepower
5. Are there 3CX consultants that you can recommend if we run into problems? They are plenty of partners ready for support and we also have high skilled forum members that are always ready to help.
6. Is our Comcast Internet 100MB fast enough? I Think this should be enough if the delivered speed is actually 100MB down / up but again you can try it for free.

1. Can you have your desk and cell phone ring at the same time? Yes you can do it either using the 3cx softphone for mobile (the best solution indeed, if you ring an external number it will consume 1 SC)
2. If yes, can you answer your cell phone and go back to your desk and resume the call on your desk phone? If the extension accepts more than 1 call at the same time then you will be able to transfer the call to yourself and get it on the other device.
3. When your desk and cell phone rings, does your cell phone show the caller ID of the caller? (as opposed to your own number) If you are using the mobile app yes, if not, it will show your provider caller ID
4. Is there a cordless phone that allows our receptionist to transfer calls? We use a headset to answer wirelessly but she has to go back to her desk to transfer the call. Again you can use a mobile application or any other VoIP phone / adapter that could do it and you will be able to transfer calls just the same way.
5. With the desktop app, is there a feature to call phone numbers on a webpage by clicking on the number? I am not sure about this feature, sorry!

Good Luck, I am pretty sure you will be really satisfied with this product.

If I said something wrong, please, someone have it corrected asap so that ahkim do knot get the wrong information.

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Just a few comments on this:
Appia is a supported provider so there an available template to set your provider up with just a few clicks.

Supported cordless phones can transfer calls.

You can call phone numbers from webpages when using the 3cx client. there is a Chrome plugin for this.
https://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/click-to-dial-extension/

I would recommend downloading the free version and testing it for your self in a test environment Only you can tell if the software is for you.
Also go through the admin manual as it has a lot of details on how to set the system up and what it can do. https://www.3cx.com/docs/manual/
For user functionality the user manual provides more details https://www.3cx.com/user-manual/

 

[Sopock]

• Can you have your desk and cell phone ring at the same time? Yes you can do it either using the 3cx softphone for mobile (the best solution indeed, if you ring an external number it will consume 1 SC)

• When your desk and cell phone rings, does your cell phone show the caller ID of the caller? (as opposed to your own number) If you are using the mobile app yes, if not, it will show your provider caller ID

More info in this topic:
https://www.3cx.com/community/threa...callerid-on-external-transferred-calls.45587/

There are things you can do, such as DSCP tagging your traffic exiting your wan port as 48 or better (Comcast honors that).The router makes all the difference, Mikrotik is the choice for us.

 

[ahkim]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I gave our IT consultant the OK to move forward. I'll post again once it's all setup.