Going to start a new business venture as the current provider of said business is absolutely PANTS!! + it will save me having to ever deal with them again.
Will employ 3/4 people and need some help with telephone exchange setup.
Don't really want to put hardware on site and like the idea of it being in the "cloud"
Employees might be in more than 1 physical location, but will make it a single office if this is too expensive.
Only need voicemail and ability to pass calls from 1 desk to another. Don't need any fancy stuff.

Anyone used anything like this before? Or can point me in the right direction?

Am looking for advice on simple telephone exchange recommendation for very small business.

You want VOIP.

My business uses soho66.co.uk.

Give them a try. Should be able to sort out what you want.

For the actual phone you've got two options, buy a VOIP phone and connect that to your internet connection OR buy a linksys voip adapter. You connect that to your internet connection and a phone to the adapter.

You gotta love this forum. That took less than 30 seconds on a Saturday night. Nice one, thanks.

If you want a traditional solution go for a Panasonic 308 PBX up to three lines in and eight extensions been using one for 6 years and had no issues.

[Edited on 1/12/12 by big-vee-twin]

A Pannie 308 is old hat nowadays and is about to be discontinued by Panasonic. Be very careful about buying one on the net a lot are grey imports and not made for our line voltages etc.

An NEC SL1100 will cost about the same money but give you loads more bang for your bucks it will carry analogue, ISDN or VOIP is easier to expand than the 308 which will only ever handle 3 lines of analogue and all switching is analogue whereas the NEC is digital and give you some cracking features one of which being the ability for a cell phone to be part of the phone system..

VOIP is like chucking a coin in the air as regards speech quality as a phone engineer I wouldnt even think about it unless the ADSL line has been thoroughly tested one of the the boys in suits will sell it to you but you'll regret it and as for VOIP centrex the less said the better, it may be OK for a guy working from home or a one man band but for serious voice traffic no, Ive taken more VOIP systems out than Ive installed, ask any Phone techie worth his salt what they think of VOIP and we will all tell you the same thing, it isnt ready, maybe in a few years but until BT do some serious work on the exchanges not just yet.

If you want something new at the right price or second user kit give me a u2u, if you want to do the cabling and I'll either talk you through programming or do it remotely so you dont have installation costs no problem.
Cheers,
Bob

[Edited on 2/12/12 by splitrivet]

I find the comments about voip interesting. my service provider is virgin which may affect things a little, my office usage is minimal but I'm I'm impressed and looking At moving my personal house phone over to it. I used to work with a bloke who set up a 10 person office without issue - but I've no idea what internet connection they had. for the cost why not try it, if your not happy follow the professionals advice.

Agree with Bob re VOIP. Mike, you may find Virgin good in your area, and superior to BT, I know I do but that is because their infrastructure is very new compared to BT. As Bob says, unless BT do something major with their exchanges and indeed their whole network, it's not a good idea!

Cheers, Nick

Panasonic is old hat, but OP said he wanted simple and obviously when setting up cheaper the better.

A new NEC system will cost best part of a grand, a new 308 will cost a couple of hundred.

If all the OP is after , like me, is something to make and receive calls on with no bells and whistles that costs next to nothing then Pan 308 or similar is the way to go.

[Edited on 2/12/12 by big-vee-twin]

if its a single line, a simple dect phone set with answering machine may suffice
bt graphite with 4 handsets for instance.

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/bt-graphite-2500-quad-cordless-phone-with-answer-machine-73LL.html

you could use 2 base stations on 2 line but this gets complex

An NEC SL1100 with 4 analogue trunks is cheaper than a KXTEA308 thats before Panasonics 20% price rise theyve just implemented, handset prices for 12 key display phones are 20% less than Panasonic display and the same as Panasonic non display before the price hike. You will find stuff cheap on the web but as I say these are grey import and the last one we fitted for someone was made for Bahrain and sounded like you'd got your head in a bucket.
That affects it a lot Mike, Virgin service is fibre to the street cabinet and copper thereafter the same as BT infinity so line quality is better and the upload capacity is better the upload is the key with VOIP not as most think the download , at home my download is 18 meg which I'm chuffed with, my upload 750K, not much cop for 6 simultaneous speech calls and moving a 30 meg file
I have Virgin BB at work and it is good, in saying that once every few days we do have to power the router on off not good if you were talking to a client regarding a 10 grand deal.
The other problem is line numbers if your using an established line number and transfer it to VOIP and it goes pear shaped it can cost a fortune and take a very long time to get it back to normal working and can be inoperative for several days (2 weeks for a client we are moving back to standard working at the moment) not good if all your existing clients and your advertising is giving out the number.
Newly provided VOIP numbers although geographic ie 01782, 01, 0121 etc are not exchange driven ie they dont match the number plan in your local exchange, so if youve a number you have used for 2 years everyone knows it and you want more outgoing lines and the VOIP wont handle it and you want to go to regular working your stuffed as the local exchange cannot accept that number range.
Personally I cant see the point, I have just lost a long term client to VOIP Centrex he never asked me to give him an alternative quote just rang to cancel his maintenance contract (after a visit from a wide boy in a suit) with us after he put his monica on the bottom of the contract. He was good enough to email me over the competitors costings. Turns out what he is going to be paying initially for equipment and for the first 12 months service charge is slightly higher than my installed costs for new equipment but the ongoing service charges never end, call charges are the same but the speech quality I have no doubt will be inferior and I know in 6 months he will be ringing to ask me to sort the whole mess out.
Cheers,
Bob

[Edited on 2/12/12 by splitrivet]

Have you thought about featurenet from BT. You only pay for the facilities you want. All the hardware is in the exchange and is future proof. Might be worth a call.

Thanks everyone for the info - my problem is that I just don't know what's out there at the moment.

My broadband line is provided by Nildram (I think it's talk talk now) but I can change this should the need arise. BT won't do infinity here but a couple of friends have it just round the corner.

I'll checkout the featurenet from BT this week and the other solutions mentioned.
splitrivet, I've sent you a U2U

Cheers

Try http://www.3cx.com/ Works with VOIP can use Smart phones on WIFI as had sets

My vote is BT feature line I have used it for my ofiice for over 10 years I think. Simple, cheap and no hardware to maintain. We are surveyors and the ability to transfer calls to mobiles out on site has been a tremendous advantage.

Went I moved office recently we looked at internet systems but as others have said concern was over call quality.

Featurenet or Centrex is OK for Square working ie 2 lines 2 extensions or 4 lines 4 extensions otherwise you are paying rental for unused lines and its also PABX, you cant see whats happening within the system As most businesses are under square ie 2 lines 4 extensions and want to know whats going on within the switch.
Been helping my son inlaw fix his van with the obligatory visit to the boozer after so I'll give you a call in the morning Niel as I may be talking up a snorkel.
Cheers,
Bob