Can we have 2 to 4 remote IP Phones off of our existing IP Office Essential Rls 7?

[Uraby]

Hi Experts, A quick moment to answer my question would be greatly appreciated!

We are looking at opening a remote office and would like to use 2 to 4 IP phones off of our current IP Office Essential Edition Release 7. To do this will we need to upgrade our existing system to the Preferred Edition?

Many thanks,
Uraby

 

[derfloh]

If it is a remote office I think there will be a site to site tunnel. Then your only challenge will be to configure your phones at the remote office to connect through the tunnel. No extra licensing needed.

You only have to be sure to have every kind of voip ALG/helper/fixup etc disabled in the used firewalls.

 

[Uraby]

Thank you derfloh. We are pretty small and were hoping to accomplish this using the internet high speed. Assume we need to be concerned about available bandwidth. Is there some rule of thumb to determine how much bandwidth we need?

 

[derfloh]

You will not need more or less bandwidth if you connect both sites via VPN. The available bandwidth for duplex connections depends from the available upload speed at every site. That is the same through Internet connections as well as a connection through vpn tunnel.

 

[Gunnaro]

Site-Site VPN is the only good way of doing this.
A pair of ok VPN routers cost about $400.

You'll burn off twice of that fighting the built-in VPN client on the phones.

(And don't put anything directly on the Internet, that will only lead to a economical disaster. Hackers will swarm around you ...)

Bandwidth ~100 Kbps per phone.

You also need to think about the Emergency calls, the off-site phones should present a CLI registered at their physical location.

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[Uraby]

Thank you Gunnar. This is very helpful. I don't know why I was thinking that we needed the Professional Edition to do this for 4 phones. For some reason I thought it was 2 max using the Essential.

 

[Gunnaro]

Using Site-Site VPN you can have hundreds of phones off-site

Preferred is real nice to have, but not a prerequisite for remote sites to work.

Also pay attention to Derfloh's comments on ALG/helper/inspection/fixup.

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[Uraby]

Will do Gunnar. I thank you and derfloh. Cheers

 

[TouchToneTommy]

You will also need IP Endpoint licenses for the remote phones, if you do not already using IP phones on site. We use 9608 phones with the VPN settings enabled and Sonicwall NSA 220 firewall/router.