@NetworkNerd said:

I actually really like Broadvox (recently acquired by Fusion and named NBS) in addition to the others that were recommended here.

The phone bill is literally about $400 or less for 4 companies and 15 concurrent calls. That is amazing compared to what it was when we had PRI.

$400 a month for basically 15 lines I guess that's good. I think we pay around $500 for a PRI (23 lines) so $400 doesn't seem like such a deal.

I'll probably get 'modded' for saying this - off topic and all - but what's killing me is the $850/mth for fiber internet for 6 megs. We moved to fiber 6 years ago for the reliability factor. We used to house our EMR onsite. We needed to make sure we didn't have drops in connection that can commonly happen to cable/DSL provided internet. In 6 years we've had about 10 mins of total unscheduled downtime. Cable on the other hand has had about 50 hours in our area (we know because our satellite office uses said cable internet and in 2012 there were some major issues).

We have an 85+ phone setup spread over two buildings.

65+ digital phones on an old (now EOF'ed) Access system and 20+ VIOP phones on an Inter-Tel 5000.

Since the Access system is EOF'ed our vendor has a solution that would replace the Access but allow us to continue using all of our old digital phones.

I'd like to consider a Asterisk system, but I'm not sure if I should put that much risk on my company because I don't know it (though I know I can hire out the installation/management of it as I learn).

I've reached out to Digium, they quoted me $25K+ to replace everything I currently have with their drop in appliance, and this is before I consider any cabling that needs to be done to support phones in areas where I only have CAT3 or POE switches/power injectors/power bricks. Additionally, that costs about 4 times more than the conversion costs from my current vendor to stay with Inter-Tel. The costs of all of the new phones alone cost more than the entire conversion.

We don't have any problems with our phones at this time. We're only looking at moving because at some point parts will become difficult to acquire now that the manufacturer has stopped making/fixing them.

Thoughts on one direction or the other?

I would like to see a list feature like the other place has that people can spi... I mean vote up.

I also agree with Scott, again, gee do I ever have my own thoughts?... I like the notices for all new posts - now to setup and maybe use RSS though so I can keep track easier.

Additional features
Tapatalk - already mentioned above
Forum Runner
As @ajstringham said, when you click the link for a new post, it takes you to that post, not the top of the thread.

I LOVE the live chat feature!!! Though compatibility with traditional chat clients would be fantastic.

Day late and a dollar short. Once again, MS playing catch up.

We've had similar temperature swings. 2 weeks ago we had 50 and 60's too.

@Minion-Queen said:

Wow this will be interesting and scary to watch. Can you imagine what will happen if she wins. This kind of precedent will not be good for anyone.

This is the worse part of it. Now a child can determine if they are of legal adult age? On a positive note, if she wins, she'd have to listen to her parents rules and I see no reason why they couldn't require her to move back home and not pay for college, etc. But at what point could they kick her out as an adult and not be found in a situation of neglect?

I hope the judge simply tosses this on the basis that the state declares you an adult and responsible for yourself at age 18 (FYI, 19 is the age of majority in Nebraska and a few other states).

We have another week + of teens.... ug! I'm very ready for spring! and finally a decently wet summer I'm tired of drought to.

I've toyed with the idea of doing what Scott does (use Asterisk at home) as a way to force myself to learn how it work. With that in mind I would require cordless phones at home to work on the system.

Scott, you run Asterisk as a VM, right? What kind of phones do you use? Do you use any wireless/portable phones on this at home?

@scottalanmiller said:

@ajstringham said:

@Dashrender I know. I'm on a home account. Ok, I think I just answered my own question. They will block requests being sent on those ports to your IP but if you are the one requesting they don't block them. pounds forehead

That's how a normal firewall works. You home firewall does the exact same thing.

I think @ajstringham was just having a 'slow' night. Happens to us all.

I'd like to dip my toe in with Asterisk and need a recommendation for a SIP provider.

Thanks.

I think different icons for each side would be cool, but I think they should be smaller, not bigger.

I also agree with Scott's point about not showing who likes/dislikes.

BB is Best Buy. Before I started pressing people to buy business class machines I would assist people in picking machines from time to time... Best Buy would push Webroot like crazy. To me that was a sign that this product was pretty unworthy. Though I will admit I didn't like them solely because they were in Best Buy, a place that is rarely known for carrying quality software/hardware (major name bands being the exception).

@ajstringham said:

@Dashrender How do they differentiate between a normal person's traffic v. someone hosting a server? Just volume?

I don't understand? Consumer traffic for Cox is one network, commercial traffic is a separate network, or so they tell me. In either case, they block ports 80 and 25 from the outside destine for your home on consumer connections.

You're lucky, Cox and most other ISPs block port 80 and 25 incoming to their consumer customers. Of course you could host on other ports, but that is difficult at best.

Nebraska is no better, I think the high today was 15.

@ajstringham said:

@Dashrender They seem to be emerging as an industry leader. They were crap a few years ago. As in someone would go SEP willingly over them but they rebuilt from the ground up and have been seriously impressing.

I have to completely agree with that statement, and I'd rather have no AV than use SEP. When BB used to practically force Webroot on you I hated them as an AV, but now in light of cryptolocker and the protection they offer - color me impressed.

Dynamic IPs are easy to get around, but what about port blocking?
FIOS isn't available where I live.

Centurylink has recently rolled out 1 Gb Fiber, but again I live in the wrong part of town, so I'm currently out of luck.

I agree it had problems in the past, but the POCP (cloud solution) seems to be pretty good.

But when our current contract is up I'm going to be seriously considering moving to Webroot. I really am impressed by their backup of files touched by untrusted files.