FacetPhone Remote Location Scenarios ------------------------------------ Companies considering installing an IP-PBX system like FacetPhone are often looking forward to the benefit of using the public or private data network to carry voice traffic to and from branch locations. An understanding of FacetPhone's capabilities in this area is essential to the decision-making process involved in purchasing or expanding a FacetPhone installation. Customer's needs for voice access to remote locations over a data network can be analyzed using the answers to a set of questions. In each question, the term "remote location" describes the home or office that is not in the same place as the FacetPhone server. In particular, if the FacetPhone system is being installed in a branch office, then "remote location" might refer to the company's main office. Scenario One: Very Small Office or Home Office -------------------------------------------- 1a. Is the remote location small, with one or two users and one or two outside lines? 1b. If so, does the remote location have regular telephone service? This scenario is the very small office/home office. A person working from home might have the need for a phone that acts as a station on the main system. He does not need a FacetPhone server of his own, because he only has a single station and maybe a single outside line. He has his regular home phone for emergency calls, so if his data network connection goes down he will still be able to call 911 from his home phone. Another example of the very small office/home office might be an office in another city that has only two people working it it. In order to set up the VSOHO installation, they would still need a locally-connected phone that could be used for emergencies when the data network to the main location goes down. The simple test for the application of the VSOHO scenario is the question: 1c. If FacetPhone were not being used, would this remote location have a PBX or Key system of its own? If the answer is "No, they would just have regular telephones connected to one or two outside lines.", then the VSOHO characterization probably applies. If the answer is "Yes, they would have an office telephone system", or "Yes, in fact, they already do have an office telephone system", then you probably do not want to set them up as a VSOHO. To set up a VSOHO location, you install a media gateway and connect it to the data network. Then you add the gateway to the configuration in the FacetPhone server software. Finally, you add the stations and lines to the FacetPhone server configuration. It is important that the main FacetPhone server machine and the other media gateways can address this media gateway by IP address. If the connection between the main location and this VSOHO location is a private network, this visibility is usually accomplished by giving the gateway a fixed IP address and setting its default route to the SOHO router that is on the same (remote location) LAN as the media gateway. On the other hand, if the connection between the main location and the VSOHO location is the public internet, then a router capable of VPN is usually employed. The VPN router is told to give the media gateway a fixed IP address on the private side of the router and the media gateway is set up to use the VPN router as its default route. Once this configuration is complete, the user at the VSOHO location should be able to use his station as his voice connection. He can set up a "Location" for himself (e.g. called "Home" or "Reno") that describes his computer and station at the remote office. Then he can select this location when he logs in and be ready to place or receive calls. Scenario Two: One location that has an existing phone system. --------------------------------------------------------------- 2a. Does the remote location have an existing PBX or Key system (office telephone system)? 2b. If so, does the customer plan to keep this system and have no plans to upgrade to use FacetPhone? Many customers would like to upgrade their phone system at one location, but also have another location where they want to keep the existing phone system in place. They want the FacetPhone users at the main location to be able to call the individual extensions on the legacy phone system at the remote location. Conversely, they want the users of the old phone system at the remote office to be able to call extensions on the FacetPhone system in the main office. To accomplish this, we will make some of the stations on the FacetPhone system be line appearances on the remote telephone system, and vice versa. Some of these suggestions suppose that the legacy phone system has outside line connections available while other expect that there is the capability to connect analog phones to extension ports on the legacy system. As long as one of these two is true, we can proceed. If both are true, we can proceed and get full benefit of the interconnection. First, we will put one or more media gateways in the remote location. We will configure some ports for FXO and some for FXS. We will configure the IP connectivity like we did for Scenario One. Then we can connect the ports on the remote gateways directly to the ports on the remote location's existing phone system. For example, say that the existing phone system at the remote location is not using its Line 7 and Line 8 connections, and it also is not using its Station 13 and Station 14 ports. We would connect Lines 7 and 8 on the phone system to FXS ports 1 and 2 on the gateway. Then we would connect Station 13 and 14 on the phone system to FXO ports 3 and 4 on the gateway. In the FacetPhone configuration, we would set up the gateway with a fixed IP address and the correct default route. We would set its branch location to "1" for the first branch, "2" for the second branch, etc. We would put the two FXO ports in the same trunk group (trunk group 1 for our example). Then we would assign station number to the two FXO ports (stations 140 and 141 in this example). When users at the remote location want to call a user at the main (FacetPhone) location, they will dial out on one of the lines that is connected to the gateway. So, they would pick up Line 7 and dial 101 to get the FacetPhone user at extension 101. If they did an intercom call to Station 13 or 14, they would get the operator or auto-attendant at the main location. When users on the FacetPhone system want to call the branch, they would use the "81," prefix (instead of "9,") to get an outside line in trunk group 1. Then they would dial the extension number that is assigned by the old phone system to the person they want to call. If a FacetPhone user were to call station 140 or 141, they would ring in on Line 7 or Line 8 of the old phone system. Creative dialing would allow users at both locations to dial out on outside lines in the other city. All of the voice would be carried over the data network, so toll charges could be avoided. Scenario Three: Both locations run FacetPhone --------------------------------------------------------------- 3a. Does the remote location have an existing PBX or Key system (office telephone system)? 3b. If so, will the customer upgrade to use FacetPhone? 3c. If not, will the customer buy FacetPhone for the remote location? When a customer has decided to run FacetPhone servers in two locations, he might like a high degree of cooperation between the two systems so that he can easily tell if people at the remote location are on the phone, and similar features. Although we have some plans to make this work in the future, these features fall into the category of things yet to be done. The most important capability, however, that of carrying voice calls over the data WAN can be accomplished in the current version. You simply follow the directions under Scenario Two, and you will give users at both locations the ability to call users at the other location. Also, they will be able to use the outside lines in the other city to avoid tolls. As far as presence and availability management is concerned, users calling from one office to the other will be identified on the user list as "Miami Office 1" or "Market St. Store" rather than by the name of the individual. The primary downside to this arrangement is that it requires two additional gateway ports per possible conversation to accomplish. Scenario Four: Both locations use a legacy phone system. --------------------------------------------------------------- 2a. Do BOTH locations have an existing PBX or Key system (office telephone system)? 2b. If so, does the customer plan to keep this system and have no plans to upgrade to use FacetPhone in either location? Occasionally, you run into a customer who does not want a new phone system at all. They want to use their existing phone systems at various locations, but they want the ability to use their extensive data network to make calls without long-distance charges. For these situations, I describe a way to use FacetPhone as a bridge between locations, even when it is not the primary phone system at any of them. Choose one of the locations to install the FacetPhone server. It would be the one that is centrally situated among the other locations as far as the network is concerned. Or, if there are just two locations, choose the one with the most competent IT staff. Put media gateways at each location, set their IP visibility as described in Scenario One, and connect them to the legacy phone systems as described in Scenario Two. Then users at any location can call an extension at any other location over the IP data network. The exact dialing sequences will depend on the different phone systems that are attached. With clever configuration, the voice mail and automated attendant features of FacetPhone could be used for each location. When the customer sees how useful these features are, he might change his mind and start upgrading his various locations to use FacetPhone as his primary phone system.