atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Temporary Office Setup

Hi folks, I'm looking to setup a temporary office and need some advice on what type of phone service to get. My company is going to require an office for 8 - 9 months, starting in February. We're looking at maybe 10 people who would require phone and Internet service. From what I understand now, we'll probably not need anything special on the phone side (no auto attendant, ACD, paging, operator, etc.). Just simple voice lines/phones.

My question is, would this be the type of situation that hosted phone service would make sense? We'd be willing to spring for a PoE switch, if necessary. Since we will also need a Internet access, the voice/data service could be bundled, I suppose. We won't have any technical staff on-site for the duration of the project, so I don't want any management overhead, if possibe.

Another option I figure might be renting some phone equipment for the duration. We really don't want to have equipment left over that we can't use afterwards. I'm also looking at what I can charge as an expense for the project, which might ultimately be a deciding factor.

What I need now is some advice on what my options are given the temporary office situation.

Regards,

Steve

I keep a couple of old Legend systems around for just that purpose. One common use is for campaign offices. I like the legend because there is no punch-down required, everything is on modular connectors.

I don't charge rent, per se, but I charge an up-front fee to program and set it up. That way, I don't have to be waiting for a check each month.

Of course the equipment I use is stuff that I've gotten back as trade-ins from customers who upgraded to new systems, so I have absolutely no investment in hardware.

I doubt a hosted provider would let you off that quickly. Find someone like Dylan, with a used system to rent. You're not asking for voice mail so you should be able to get by very reasonably. Even a modular system that you could run long cords off of. Its not something that we like to see, but if it's temporary, it would suffice.

I would imagine anything "bundled" would be under a contracted term and most likely not for less that a year or very expensive if it is.

Like Dylan said, rent a system and use POTS and get DSL on one of them for the internet.

Cords all over the place can be kept neat if the users cooperate. Trouble is, "temporary" has a tendency to become "permanent". :bang:

Steve, why didn't you call me? Where is the love? You know that I'll hook you up with something. 703-546-1234.

Thanks for the response guys.

Dylan, that seems like a good idea, and, of course, the up-front fee makes good business sense.

Dave, thanks for bringing up voicemail, I'm guessing we WILL need that in this implementation.

Dave (MooreTel), I was wondering about the contract terms on hosted. Also, we will need a professional wiring job with this, to include voice and data. I'd prefer to get one company to rent me the equipment, do the voice setup, and run all of the cable.

Ed, I'm with a new company since last May and the temp office is in Charlotte, NC. Of course I know you have a warehouse full of gear, but I figured it's a little out of your area. BTW, I miss my old server room and the lack of cable clutter!

You guys know of a good installer in the Charlotte area? I was going to post in the "Need an Installer" category once I get a few more details on the project.

Hmmm. Charlotte, NC. Democratic National Convention. Hmmmm.

If it is a campaign office, will credit card terminals be needed or will that be handled by a web-based virtual terminal?

PM me. I'm a couple of hours away from Charlotte. I keep a few older systems around for this type of deployment as mentioned above.

Ed

Owain, on this side of the pond, the politicians prefer untraceable funds. That way they can use $$$$ from out of the country without getting caught. When they do finally get caught, they're already running for the NEXT election, pay a little fine and DO IT AGAIN!