You never know how things will work out
During the time of PBXIAF V 1.0, I had been working with Trixbox for about 6 months. By the time pbxiaf 1.1 came out, I had learned enough about the way Trixbox cant be updated to develop a healthy appreciation for the PBXIAF “compile on site, update as prudent” approach.
I happen to be a techno-nut – but that not withstanding; our small business was experiencing telephonic growing-pains. After 7 years in business, an opportunity to expand our private label help desk product was easily ready to overrun the terrible copper lines we had for telephone service.
Since it was obvious VoIP was the only way to go – we began to explore what was out there. Vonage was riding high, Packet8 and many other competitors all got us around the limited copper into the office, each one we looked at had their own special quirks. All of them were using Analog telephone adapters (ATA s) and either regular or slightly customized Analog phones.
We began a year of exploration that started with the BigGreenBox – hoping to learn enough about VOIP and this strange creature called FreePBX to be able to use it. But with time marching on, Packet8’s Virtual Office product was selected, and put into use in a 10 phone system.
Although pretty much always under development, the web application that was provided was a little twisted, but once you got over it way of looking at call flow – rudimentary ring groups could be arranged in such a way as to simulate queues, provided nor more than 8-10 callers were on hold. And so we went for a good year. We definitely used all our creativity to connect various IVR’s ($15/month each) to give the caller a good experience, but we were already clearly operating at the very limits of flexibility and capacity for the Packet8 system.
The average telephone bill during this period was approximately $380/month. This was about 1/3 of what copper lines and almost nothing in hardware ($1,000 in proprietary telephones/ATA’s.)
Then the balance was broken when Packet8 rather arbitrarily stopped supporting a type of IVR transfer that was crucial to our work flow. At the same moment, the unthinkable happened, and the help desk grew a little more. Less flexibility + even more demands for non achievable call flow changes was death knoll for packet8 at our office.
During this same time we had deployed several ISO’s of the GreenBox in the lab, and with the Field technicians….Several ISO’s. In a very short time. So many ISO's, so fast - and a complete reinstall to go with each one. Yikes. It had become apparent to me that my career would suddenly change from network engineering to “PBX Upgrade and reconfigure monkey” if we deployed that distribution. Also – the forums… Were unproductive and negative much of the time. There are ways to disagree and still remain civil. Then, I rediscovered Nerd Vittles. This was at the time of release of PBXIAF 1.1
The difference in the environment and team spirit – even when disagreements occur – is very palatable, and the community full of people who are so wonderfully giving of their experience. The difference in the distributions – well- they can be summed up in about 6 words. Ward Mundy, Tom King, and Joe Roper.
This trio has brought together a remarkable set of skills and disciplines that produced a really really good distribution. RPM based, so knuckleheads like me can follow simpler instructions. Updated, Compiled right on the box – and fully scripted. Security flaws get fixed in hours – sometimes minutes (when they find them – there’s been so FEW), not DAYS like the other guys. And all based on FreePBX – arguably the most evolved UI for managing Asterisk.
Together – they got stability, reliability, and repeatability, and decorated it with enough solid features and functions to be a platform whose feature function benefit points are all top notch. Linux, Asterisk, Mysql, apache, Text to speech (2 different flavors), voice reminders, wake up calls, weather reports, tide reports, email by phone, headlines by phone, and scripts that make it all go together just the way it has to be “stable and reliable”.
PBX In a Flash is a gift – an opportunity for our technical staff to learn a new area of our field, with the camaraderie of some genuine experts in the arena. We are 8 people, doing the work of 12 – just like a million small businesses. As an old network guy – learning a new skill has been tremendously exhilarating. (And this technology is so flexible; I stand to be exhilarated by learning new things for a long time to come!) The professional growth has been great for all of us.
Now, the money. Way back up in the top of this article, I told you the phone bill with Packet8 was on a good month $380. With barely the faculties we needed to do our professional best.
Today, thanks to PBXIAF, we run 6 queues every day, with tremendous customer – and client satisfaction. We use every part of the system – to provide our customers with the best telephone interaction experience they could get anywhere. While handling about 10% more traffic, and with far superior call handling and work flow support, our average phone bill is $120 month.
Heres the good part. With the $260 a month being saved, the company was able to afford to bring in group medical insurance for all the employees. Now how’s that for positively impacting 8 people every single day of their lives?
Ward, Tom, Joe – I could never have done it without you.
PS> The adventure isn’t over. In the last few weeks I have (again) begun to work with A2Billing – the only part of PBXIAF that I have been completely befuddled by from the beginning. The good news is – A2Billing its turning out to be just as amazing as PBXIAF is. Ill be writing some about how I made the trip from “I’ll NEVER figure this out” to “I Actually think I understand how to do this.”
Phone System 