Voip Options for Your Business

At Alltel, we understand that each business has different needs when it comes to phone services and systems.

Alltel SmartConnect offers you many options so that you can change over to VoIP easily and at a price to suit your budget.

Existing phones or new VoIP (SIP) phones?

Your ability to retain and use your existing phone system is dependent on your VoIP service provider (SP).

Many VoIP SPs will only provide services that connect to (new) VoIP phones and systems. If you have a good phone system now, you may not want to replace it.

Alltel SmartConnect gives you the option to keep your existing phone system or replace it if required.

Simple Business VoIP

This is usually suitable for small offices needing 1-3 phone lines - similar to having normal PSTN lines.

You can either use VoIP/SIP handsets or connect your existing PSTN handsets to VoIP by using adapters (ATAs).

If you wish, you can retain your existing PSTN phone line/s for incoming calls and use your Alltel SmartConnect VoIP service for making outgoing calls.

Hosted PBX

Rather than purchase and maintain an in-house PBX, Alltel SmartConnect's hosted PBX enables your phone system and functions to be hosted and maintained remotely.

Your phones are connected through your broadband connection to our Hosted PBX system. You usually get all the normal features of an in-house PBX but without the high set-up cost - including IVR (interactive voice response/phone menu), call forwarding, voice mail and more.

You'll have access to your Alltel Hosted PBX via a web interface. This enables you to make configuration changes if needed.

Integrating your existing PBX/phone system with VoIP

If you've already invested in a PBX for your normal phone (PSTN) services, you probably won't want to discard it for another new system.

Alltel SmartConnect enables you to keep your existing PBX and have VoIP integrated into it. You can also keep your existing PSTN phone numbers if required.

Your own internal IP-PBX

A commonly used IP PBX is Asterisk®, a well known "open source" software program. This means that the basic software is free.

However, while this may sound like a great deal, there are a few catches:

1. Asterisk® usually needs to be installed on a separate computer with special telephony hardware components fitted.
2. Asterisk® uses a Linux operating system. A Linux expert is required to configure the complex Asterisk PBX system. This includes connecting properly to a broadband connection and phone system/handsets - and to maintain the system.

We recommend PBX hardware/software combinations that are more "user friendly". Although they may be initially setup by an expert, most users with Windows program experience can make changes if required.