Hi,

i’m managing a voip system in the company where i work (i inheritted the system). We have a freepbx system running on an old pc which sounds like it’s going to give up anytime soon. also i don’t like how slow and limited the machine is (takes 5+ min to access the web gui, freepbx not activated, no admin console and overall i never worked with freepbx). first idea was to get a new machine and run 3cx self-hosted, but their yearly subscription went thru the roof recently. i was managing 3cx before and i know to admin it, but pricing is uff.

so option 2 is a hardware dedicated voip central - grandstream ucm6301 sounds like what we need - we have 30 extensions, a few call groups, a simple IVR with 5 selections, work hours and out of work hours recording and routing, plus a few rules for internal calls going out thru the gsm gateway.
all extensions are 3 digit, cisco and yealink ip phones. no analog phones. 2 sip trunks to provider. No mobile phone app needed.

i’d buy 2 and use them in HA mode.
also we have a video door phone that works well with a yealink phone, so not sure if i need a grandstream that supports video, but the price difference between ucm6301 and ucm6300A (audio-only model) is not big…
system is running on it’s own subnet on a vlan. trunks are connected to a provider directly with no internet connectivity (dedicated voip port on the ISP gateway).

any advice on this ? IS this a good choice of hardware and overall upgrade?

thanks

  • JRenaud007@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I install Grandstream PBXs, i probably installed 100s, from 6102 to HA 6510 with HA100.

    I do not really recommend this product, use a workstation computer with VitalPBX.

    CDR issues, backup issues, storage issues, grandstream has a tendency to send unfinished products to market.

    ​

    I’m grandstream certified, vitalpbx reseller, DM if you need any further infos or help

    • OLDMAN_Alltech@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

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    • toborgps@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      This is how I feel - I’m not a vitalpbx guy but I am certified with Grandstream. Grandstream makes great products but I found their PBXs lacking in some areas. Genuinely you’d be better off just upgrading the computer and doing a Freepbx reinstall and setup.

      • Seankan@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Same I’m certified as well. One if my major issues with them is secruity. Their ucms are hacked a lot. I had one system that had all the secruity options enabled fail to ban etc. Admin password was 25 characters long, aplha numeric etc. Someone hacked in. Tried to make international calls. But lucky enough I had it blocked on the carrier side.

        System was fully updated. Now I only sell hosted. Cost is more but less headaches. Only a handful of clients with grandstream systems now. Just waiting for contracts to end before I switch them to hosted.

    • stlslayerac@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I would agree with you on their older product’s but grandstreams GRP phones combined with a 6300 series PBXs have been like the easiest fucking thing in the world for me especially with their zero config. I have 20 that I manage and everything you’ve just said with the 6300 ecosystem has yet to happen to me. Their phones are kind of shitty compared to yealink but my largest system is paired with Yealinks with no issues. I just can’t say anything bad about the pbx yet. Its been 2 years now and I NEVER have to work on them except firmware updates. I haven’t even had a firmware update break anything yet.

      Managing these PBX systems which maybe is conservatively 30 hours a year so far after they have been installed has easily saved me atleast 27k in yearly revenue and thats just because I’m not paying some asshole company in the cloud per extension anymore. Twilio does all the compliance so im not at threat of being shut down.

      It does lack advanced features I will give that to you but most companies with 30 extensions aren’t asking for those advanced features. As long as they can listen to their voicemail and forward the phone to their cell when they leave they are happy.