Hosted by 3CX: Your FAQs Answered!

[cobaltit]

Also, it has less options for ports and such.

We haven't historically used PBXExpress for this reason. We like to use 5000/5001 for the admin ports. Most of this was to avoid port conflicts because we did a lot of on-premise installs. Not really an issue with cloud deployments and easier with increased use of the web client. Still doesn't help with the own cloud issue the port issue aspect is less of an issue for us going forward with the trend towards the web client.

 

[Vanburen]

Will the Hosted by 3CX option be available to end users? Or will it be partners only?

 

[cobaltit]

Did you read the FAQ linked the first post?

https://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/hosted-pbx-faq/

We recently announced our hosting service for 3CX Partners’ NFR keys. This is in preparation of our commercial hosting later in 2020.

 

[Vanburen]

Did you read the FAQ linked the first post?

https://www.3cx.com/blog/docs/hosted-pbx-faq/

Yes I read the commercial hosting part, but I wasn't certain that meant available to end-users. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[N_G]

@cobaltit thanks for the headsup

@Vanburen Yes for endusers as well. It will be free until the end of the year. After that we will set pricing but expect it to be included as part of one of our plans.

Monday/tuesday we go into beta. Every user of 3CX will be able to use a trial instance free of charge before they migrate to hosting. So you can test it out as much as you want before you decide.

Note that you will have to use a register based SIP trunk (we will have a list of "supported" supported SIP trunks and your phones must be behind a 3CX SBC. This makes it much easier to support for us.

 

[vvoice]

Spun up my test NFR and restored from backup, and it's humming along nicely. Came up with a few questions/observations:

1. Attempted a reboot via instance manager, waited 12 minutes with nothing happening, then saw this in the instance manager log; system never rebooted:

failed
Machine not reachable - Please try to switch the Instancemanager off and on again in the management console to solve this problem.

Anyone else experiencing this?

2. Is it or will it be possible to increase quotas on voicemail and recordings when we sell this to customers?

3. Nick said that phones will only be supported behind SBC. I tried deploying a Yealink phone via STUN anyway just to see what would happen and I saw the RPS request go out but the phone never picked up the provisioning URL per usual process. The phone did work when we configured it manually.
Is there a technical reason for requiring an SBC other than being easier to support for you? We're seeing lots of folks setting up home offices these days that want a single Yealink phone at home and it's been working great without the addition of SBC's, which are more difficult for us to roll out and support on residential home networks.

 

[StefanW]

Hi @vvoice

1) dependingly if your NFR existed before in the instance manager and now once again from our cloud, it will take some time until your "old" installation is been removed from the instance manager target list.

2) The quota is/will depend on the customer's license SC size. Each SC has an associated instance configuration which also controls the Vbox and Recording Quota. If a customer has "extreme" high requirements on recording storage, then offsite archiving should be used.

3) Hosted by 3CX focuses on our mobile apps, browser extensions and web-client as the main communication devices. If a customer wishes to use IP Phones, then we will support and troubleshoot this if the device is connected via SBC. In STUN we will not offer support as there are too many "ifs" related to the customer's network, internet or firewall. Technical speaking you can configure IP phones via STUN...

 

[David Forster]

@cobaltit Thank you for your excellent support and explanations on this topic.

@pcxnet you can reboot your machine from the instance manager. Not that it should be necessary as we monitor the machines all the time. Yes you cannot SSH into the machine. If you want to manage your own machine then use private cloud. Absolutely fine with us.

However there are many customers who want to outsource the operating system management to us and ensure the PBX is always at the latest release. Partners too. (not all, some have excellent hosted systems in place) But there has to be one entity doing it, we can not allow you to make changes and then be held responsible.

Now we know what the price is of the machine, of course, but we need to be sure we understand the price of supporting and managing it and we need to get an idea how many will move to our hosted option. So we need to test run this for 3 months before we announce final pricing. I think if you look at 3CX pricing historically then you can be sure it will not be expensive.

Our current thinking is to include it in one of the product levels to keep things simple.

And you can move back and forth to your own cloud, on premise, our option - as much as you want, no problem at all. You can make a backup of the data and be up and running on another cloud in a matter of 15 minutes.

So not sure what the issue is.

Any case, our new platform will be out soon and there will be some announcements in september. I think its going to a game changer for the market quite frankly but lets see.

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the info. I see from your post that SSH will not be an option on your hosted platform. Just wondered if you had plans to manage both old hardware firmware held on disk and provide an option to delete unused wav files. Currently both of these can only be preformed via SSH.

Keep up the good work

David.

 

[N_G]

@David Forster Thanks for the heads up! Will need to check that out. But makes completely sense of course so we will address this...

 

[sofnisys]

I'm, personally, excited about this. If it gets included in a separate type of annual licensing fee for easy understanding then that helps communicate that cost all the easier. You can't blame people for wanting a cost estimate, it's only natural, and timing is an individual perspective. It's new though, so no reason to get in a tizzy Some can chill and relax while waiting for something new, because they have no intended changes to make currently. As it happens, I have about 25 instances I would like to consider moving to a 3CX hosted solution by the end of the year (I'm gathering that might be too soon though), so pricing as soon as it's available would help to consider that move, before my time is up to make that decision. Ingress/egress charges, different license pricing with included hosting, separate hosting prices for bring-your-own-license, etc. All-in-all, pretty cool move, I hope it works out in everyone's favor. I have to agree with Nick, I think if it won't be a market "changer" it will, at least, help shape the future market, or put pressure on other providers to follow suite. -cheers

How your earn a money? as you are partner

 

[vanguard08]

How your earn a money? as you are partner

If you're curious about how I personally make money, direct message me on my profile by "Start Conversation". If it's related to this thread, you'll have to be a little more specific with your question.

 

[ccs1]

@Vanburen Yes for endusers as well. It will be free until the end of the year. After that we will set pricing but expect it to be included as part of one of our plans.

How would partners assist in this model ?

 

[cobaltit]

Are IP authenticated trunks allowed but not supported like STUN phones? Until Update 8 with outbound caller ID configuration options we typically switch our trunks to IP authenticated and create multiple trunks to handle outbound caller-id.

 

[houston]

your phones must be behind a 3CX SBC.

That's a deal breaker.

A SBC doesn't work with automatic QoS.
A SBC is a single point of failure.

I hope it's a temporary requirement. Most of my customer environments do not have secure climate controlled equipment closets. They do have staff that unplug random things because they needed an outlet to charge their phones. And high pressure hoses. Water is sometimes an issue.

I am curious, what percentage of small 3cx systems use a SBC? (8 lines or less) That's most of your market I'd think.

Also, the pandemic has generated a lot of small business interest in working from home. Requiring anything more than "plug this phone into your random internet box" isn't realistic with a lot of them.

 

[N_G]

@houston - 3CX was built for staff working at home. Rather than giving them a big outdated piece of plastic, let them use the 3CX Apps which work wirelessly everywhere, much easier to maintain and have a much better user experience. You are wrong too about the SBC.

 

[Evolute IT]

@houston - 3CX was built for staff working at home. Rather than giving them a big outdated piece of plastic, let them use the 3CX Apps which work wirelessly everywhere, much easier to maintain and have a much better user experience. You are wrong too about the SBC.

Unfortunately for us, many companies still require that old piece of plastic garbage that's never 100% reliable, but it is easy to use for those who are used to Nortel and such. Even I did the move the full softphone lol no more messing around with NAT! Still subject to network QoS tho.

 

[N_G]

I think its a matter of explaining to people that the same smartphone they use for everything else can also be used for their office calls - from anywhere in their home or even on the road. You just have to give up on the idea that a deskphone is required. Its also ugly and big for in a home. Smartphone Apps are the future. Also younger people never understand the need for a deskphone. This is the role of 3CX partners that you explain to customers what they need and don't need. At home a deskphone is a pain for the customer, but also for you as a partner in terms of support and maintenance.

 

[vanguard08]

" You just have to give up on the idea that a deskphone is required. "
A non stop debate I keep having I'm all for getting rid of this archaic device taking up so much desk realty, but I don't think all of the current working generations are ready to part with their security blanket of a communication device. I've found a few different reasons, but a couple silly yet somewhat understandable ones are that a deskphone, albeit functionly historic at this point, is an accepted device and hardly given a second glance while some people still find that wearing "headsets" or "earpieces" is, for the lack of a better term, not cool. Using that, and the fact that not all users want to add an app to their personal phone devices, which I push foremost, creates an unwinnable arguement sometimes. It's a natural evolution and I don't imagine many deskphones will stick around, at least not as we know them, but who knows. I took an old bell ringer and older Samsung and slapped this together as a sarcastic joke:



Looking at some silver lining, the current events have forced some people to alter their way of thinking about this but not all. I think the idea of "office" needs an "office phone" will still hang around. I'm sure that depends on generation and different demographics though.

 

[cobaltit]

That's a deal breaker.
A SBC doesn't work with automatic QoS.
A SBC is a single point of failure.

Automatic QoS? That's kind of like uPnP or early USB. Anything that does QoS well can be configured to do QoS with a SBC. Besides, that same 'automatic' QoS is what bites you in WFH scenarios where the ISP router mangles or worse yet outright blocks SIP traffic. Having that tunnel solves all those problems.
That being said I don't think I've ever run into a problem that required QoS where upgrading bandwidth wouldn't have also fixed the issue.

For single point of failure:
https://www.3cx.com/docs/sbc-high-availability-cluster/

I am curious, what percentage of small 3cx systems use a SBC? (8 lines or less) That's most of your market I'd think.

For us? 100% of they are cloud-based. We like to do things by the book because it reduces support calls which is what ultimately costs money.

Also, the pandemic has generated a lot of small business interest in working from home. Requiring anything more than "plug this phone into your random internet box" isn't realistic with a lot of them.

With a Raspberry Pi, it's just plug two devices into your random internet box. It's not really that much more complicated. And STUN does work with 3CX hosted instances, it's just not supported. If you have STUN phones out there now and if you aren't doing the 3CX recommended configuration with port forwarding (which most people don't) and it works now with XYZ hosting it will still work with 3CX hosting.

 

[Kym Busby]

I think its a matter of explaining to people that the same smartphone they use for everything else can also be used for their office calls - from anywhere in their home or even on the road. You just have to give up on the idea that a deskphone is required. Its also ugly and big for in a home. Smartphone Apps are the future. Also younger people never understand the need for a deskphone. This is the role of 3CX partners that you explain to customers what they need and don't need. At home a deskphone is a pain for the customer, but also for you as a partner in terms of support and maintenance.

These would be valid points if the provided smartphone apps and push notifications didn't shit the bed at the slightest breeze