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Switchvox IP-PBX

January 28, 2005

Switchvox Admin

Now I'm up to 3 new IP-PBXs I never heard of that I discovered in just one day! I hope this is the last IP-PBX I hadn't heard of this week. Feels like my IP-PBX knowledge and "VoIP IQ" is going down by the second!

I just got this email an hour ago from Joshua Stephens, the CEO of Switchvox where he mentions that he has a pre-installed, easy-to-use "plug and play" IP-PBX based on Asterisk.

Ok, before the day is out, anyone else want to try and test my IP-PBX trivia? Go ahead and send me a link to an IP-PBX I never heard of. C'mon, I dare ya!!

Anyway, here's the email from Switchvox with some useful info...

I thought I'd let you know about our new product.

Switchvox is our All-in-one PBX based on Asterisk. As you noted in your review of OnDO, Asterisk is not known for being easy to set up. That's where we come in. Switchvox comes pre-installed and any hardware you might choose is pre-configured, as are any phones you purchase. It's not just Asterisk installed and configured though, there's an extensive Web interface for controlling and configuring all aspects of the system. Some of the features that you might find interesting are:

Interactive Voice Response - A point and click interface exists for recording new sounds, uploading sounds, and tieing those sounds together with numeric options (press 1 for sales) to build any interactive menu you might need. The actions the IVR is capable of performing are so numerous it's hard to get into it here.

Queues - Set up Queues to make sure callers get answered, and answered in the right order. Users can log into or out of the queue, when they're logged in they get calls.

Advanced call routing - We can, depending on your connection to the PSTN, route your calls to particular extensions based on the phone number dialed, the line it came in on, or in the case of providers that support it, based on the distinctive ring pattern provided.

Programmable interface - For people a bit more technical, we allow users to write web apps on their own servers for serving up data to people through the IVR. For example this might be used to allow an IVR menu in Switchvox to pull up people's accounts and read their balance back to them.

Flash Switchboard - We have written a flash interface that talks back to the server, allowing users to see who's calling them, place calls on hold, park calls, send calls to voicemail, and create conference rooms. This can help make a simple one line phone seem like a multi-line office phone.
Additionally, if one is provided by an external server, we can send a URL to the person answering the phone. For example, this URL could be a page displaying the caller's account.

We have a more detailed list of features on our web site www.switchvox.com as well as a few screenshots. Check it out. If you have any questions, be sure to let me know. We have a demo server set up, if you're interested in trying the software.

We'll be at the Linux Desktop Summit in February, if you're in town, stop by.

Thanks,

--Josh

Posted by tkeating at January 28, 2005 02:38 PM

VoIP » Asterisk » Switchvox IP-PBX

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» Fonality Asterisk-based IP-PBX from VoIP Blog - VoIP News, Gadgets
On Monday Fonality will be coming out of "stealth mode" promoting its PBXtra with their first press release even though they've been officially servicing customers since October 2004. "We've kind of been in stealth mode because we wanted... [Read More]

Tracked on June 20, 2005 11:01 AM

Comments to Switchvox IP-PBX

RE: Switchvox IP-PBX
Tom Schouteden :
January 31, 2005 08:41 PM
Hi Tom
I have another one you may not yet have heard of. It's called Packetbox, a preinstalled appliance that contains anti-spam, anti-virus solutions, ipsec for vpn's, groupware and a customized Asterisk solution with web based interface and flash panel. You can find more information about it at http://www.packetbox.net. The device retails at around 1000 Euro.
bye
tom

RE: Switchvox IP-PBX
Mathias Schupp :
February 4, 2005 04:04 AM
Ever heard of the sippstar IP-PBX software?
It´s an IP-PBX software for small and medium companies, developed by the makers of the CD/DVD recording software NERO.
bye
Mathias

RE: Switchvox IP-PBX
David Katz :
March 14, 2005 06:44 PM
Here is one that you might not of heard of:
www.fonality.com
I heard they are the largest commercial Asterisk play.
I am located in Vancouver, and they even have their tentacles up here.
-marc

RE: Switchvox IP-PBX
Fred Flint :
May 26, 2005 04:19 PM
Save your SPAM Katz.
Everyone, this Katz person is obviously affiliated with Fonality so take his posts with a grain of salt. These guys are posting their SPAM all over the internet on VoIP forums like they are just happy customers when in fact they are associated with the company financially!
I will NOT ever recommend Fonality for 3 reasons.
1) I don't like companies who try to prop themselves up using multiple handles on various sites disgused as happy customers.
2) They use FUD techniques to put down their competition. Namely, SwitchVox.
3) Their business model, like their marketing techniques, is dubious at best. They use a hosted server for the GUI so you are essentially buying NOTHING but an expensive server and open source software (Asterisk) which you could easily do on your own. You MUST continue to pay them an annual fee to continue to use their hosted software. If they go down you are left with NOTHING! GUI gone, bye bye!

RE: Switchvox IP-PBX
Chris Lyman (Fonality Founder/CEO) :
June 20, 2005 02:09 PM
Dear Mr. Fred Flint,
Hi there. I caught your posting above as I was reading our article in Tom's blog. You seem to have two main concerns with Fonality.
1. Fonality is "using multiple handles on various sites disguised as happy customers". I am not sure what you are referring to here. I have posted all over the Web using my name. For instance read a posting of mine on dslreports.com: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13334267?hilite=pbx
Also, forgive me for asking, but is your name really Fred Flint or is that a handle? :>|
2. You seem a bit confused about our business model. You write: "You must continue to pay them an annual fee for their hosted software". Actually, there is no annual fee to use PBXtra. You may use the software forever upon original purchase.
I think I may know the source of your confusion. Fonality *does* have an optional support-and-software-maintenance fee. Let me tell you about it:
The cost is $50-$70 per extension per year (based on size of deployment). That comes out to be about $4-6 per extension per month. Here is what you get for that:
a. Unlimited free phone and email support.
b. Unlimited free software upgrades.
This fee is 100% optional. Why do we have it? Well, first it takes money to pay for a support team. Customers want excellent and prompt support and that takes money.
That covers the support bit. Now let's talk about the software maintenance bit: Fonality has released 13 versions of its software since January. These versions come loaded with new features (and a few bug fixes too!). Not one of these version releases required a customer to download anything, or reboot their PBXtra servers. In fact, most customers had no idea there was a new release. They simply woke up in the morning and had a whole bunch of new features. That is why we have chosen to make our software Web-based. We are able to attain an increasing economy of scale, and pass those savings down to our customers.
The second reason we have chosen to make our PBX management software web-based, is so that it can reside *outside* the firewall. This means that our customers (typically small businesses without a team of dedicated IT personnel), can use the software from anywhere in the world! For instance, employees can log into our user control panel and listen to their voicemail, turn on call forwarding/find-me, click-n-call people back etc. The can do this from a hotel room while on the road. This means the admin can browse from home (on a Saturday morning) and change the way schedule calls are routing to the support dep't. Our customers find this model much easier. They don't have the time (or know-how) to:
1. Open ports in a firewall.
2. Run a local Web-server.
3. Deal with the challenge of dynamic IP addresses on a LAN.
We think the future of telephony is about mobility services...to be truly mobile you have to be able to change environments without affecting the way you work. This is the underlying concept to our outside-the-firewall web-based approach. Hope it makes more sense now.
Let me know if you are interested in a demo. Call 877-FONALITY and press 1 for sales.
Sincerely,
Chris Lyman
Fonality Founder & CEO
P.S. We launched version 2.2 of our software on Friday. It has over 20 new features!

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