Switchvox is an IP PBX supporting business phone systems, allowing users to simplify communications down to one solution delivered on-premise or hosted in the Cloud. Switchvox Cloud is a fully-featured Unified Communications (UC) solution designed for SMBs, featuring presence, instant messaging, conferencing, and mobility, for a monthly rate starting at $19.99.
Switchvox was developed by Digium and now owned and supported by Sangoma since the 2018 acquisition.
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MiCloud Connect
Score 7.8 out of 10
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MiCloud Connect is a business communications solution for contact centers that includes features like IP PBX telephony service, desk phones, softphone, and collaboration tools. It is integrable with other business communication technology, including Microsoft Outlook and CRM software.
Really Digium Switchvox is a great product, it's more of an overall service and it's great. Starting at the phones, I think they're well engineered, from button placement to make call handling a breeze, bright status indicators and programmable keys that keep things simple, and a clear back-lite screen, to light up those late night support calls. I've watched the web management interface grow into a gorgeous, friendly, informational tool that gives me a system that can do 95% of the things my customers request. The only times I've seen it as less appropriate is when it comes to the more budget restricted. I've always believed you get what you pay for, and Digium Switch provides a lovely packaged, turnkey product, that doesn't require an expert to maintain once installed. On top of that, you're paying for the service. I can speak from experience, and countless support calls, that Digium Switchvox's support is second to none. They're efficient, intelligent, friendly, and professional, I've never had a bad experience, keep up the great work!
Mitel is excellent at allowing me as a user to setup up custom call routing in response to rapidly changing work flows. If I need to work from home for a period due to medical or other reasons, logging into Mitel and setting my office phone to ring through to my home or cell is quick and simple. Changing back is just as quick.
With separate systems and two locations we used to have to fake the system into 4 digit dialing by forwarding all remote extensions to DIDs. Now with Shortel extended to the remote location we have true 4 digit dialing.
The Shortel desktop application makes managing calls and call routing a breeze for even our most novice users.
I've installed quite a few of these systems for a number of customers, and I've found a number of times having access to the second Ethernet port on some of the larger systems, and the ability to do some sort of static routing, and firewall functionality. I would love to have the ability to connect one port to the carrier's cpe router, and the other port to the customer's network.
I've worked with Voip products for a number of years, and various asterisk iterations. I'd like to see more access to the asterisk cli for troubleshooting, and/or potentially some sort of shell access.
I'd like to see the Digum Switchvox phones have vpn functionality. It would be great to deploy a field office with a pre-provisioned phone that automatically connects back to the corporate network via a secure vpn tunnel from most internet connections. Currently we either use a softphone, manually program a Cisco phone that does have the capability, or deploy an semi expensive router that support a secure tunnel. It would be much easier to sell a customer on a remote office and a fancy Digium phone, if they didn't need the extra hardware.
Although the price is higher than some of the other Hosted systems out there, the value is definitely worth a renewal. Everything is relative: there are some companies out there who need phones, but don't necessarily care how they work, the functionality/features available/durability etc., they just care that they have phones that make and receive calls. There are other companies that are completely reliant on phones and certain functionality that is provided by the system. There are even some companies who are straight up dependent on the phone system and are losing tons of money anytime they are down, ShoreTel is the perfect fit for theSMB client who sees value in a solid,robust, reliable and high functioning phone system
I have not used a wide array of communication software, but this far ShoreTel/MiCloud has been the simplest and easiest to get into. My work employs several temps at certain points throughout the year, and they use this piece of software frequently, and new hires seem to have little to no issue using this software. Additionally, this is our primary telephone communication infrastructure, and I have yet to encounter any issues when signed in and regularly using it handling external calls to our department.
The system has gone down on us MULTIPLE times. We asked them to move us to a different cluster. Shoretel declined. Basically we had problems or outages every month of the year from June 2012 to date. Our old phone system was just that: OLD, no bells or whistles. But it was up every day and I never had to think about it much until it was time for an upgrade. That's how I want Shoretel to be. I want it so reliable that I never have to think about it.
Even though the system uses a lower bandwidth connection we have experienced a higher call quality than our previous system which required a T1 line and back up broadband connection.
ShoreTel Sky's support is amazing. The only reason why I didn't give it a 10 is that we still need to contact them for stuff that we should be able to do, for ourselves, within the management portal. I know their portal is being worked on, so hopefully they will get the "little things" included for self-management.
I attended the first ShoreTel installer class in Austin,TX. It was a week of intensive study with a live lab and having hands on experience made the class worthwhile. I have taken all of the sales courses and remaining technical courses either online or self study to keep costs down. I send my techs to the first installer course in Austin as I feel it gives them a solid foundation and most of teh other courses they have taken have been online.
The training identified some things M5 (ShoreTel's cloud division) could provide, however it was only using it every day and asking the Shoretel support several questions that I got the hang of it. The training was able to highlight functions but I did not learn how to use the phone from the training.
Each of our locations has a dedicated ShoreTel router and managed QoS. With full management, it provides us a breath of space and bandwidth to use our resources in other means. Strongly consider the managed solution as you have to maintain more technical issues when hosting with your ISP. You have to make sure your ISP can provide you the best service for voice and data. Plug and 'hope' doesn't work with just routing your phones over any Internet connection....especially when your handsets run int he 100's
I've installed, and maintained a number of different phone systems over the last few years, including nationwide level Voip service providers relying entirely on custom built Asterisk systems, to SOHO systems connected to cloud level services. So far Digium Switchvox has been one of my favorites when it comes to ease of use, customer service, and over all reliability. While there are a few things I'd like to see done a little differently, updates are released frequently with fixes, and new features.
Aptela. I chose M5 (ShoreTelSky) because their platform puts call quality first. Their system also uses Cisco endpoints, which are very compatible with the rest of my Cisco network. I also liked the fact that ShoreTelSky uses the internet only as a backup for transport; I use MPLS as my primary connectivity.
I believe that ShoreTel can be used by a minimum company size of about 25 to almost any size of a company and this can be achieved while the company grows, hence makes it pretty scalable when required. For companies which are smaller in size i.e. smaller than 25, I am not sure how useful it would be, it may be depending upon the type of business
At my branch alone, we are saving over $500 a month using Shoretel Sky versus the phone company we were using before them.
Shoretel Sky has increased customer service by allowing our employees to easily transfer a call to the proper department or branch no matter where they are located instead of giving the caller a phone number to call.
Most of our locations did not have caller ID before Shoretel Sky. That feature has increased employee efficiency because when they know who is calling before they answer allows them to professionally greet their caller and have their info up on their computer as they answer.
