Ooma Office Line Concept

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lbmofo
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Re: Ooma Scout/Hub to Ooma Office?

Post by lbmofo » Sun May 26, 2013 10:57 am

Tom, ooma Telo supports up to 2 concurrent phone calls while ooma Office supports up to 10 concurrent phones calls right? Although Office can handle up to 5 physical lines, the 10 concurrent calls can possibly expand to virtual extensions?

Tuan
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Re: Ooma Scout/Hub to Ooma Office?

Post by Tuan » Sun May 26, 2013 2:38 pm

The terminology confusion is driving me nuts. I guess I'm telling Ooma not to advertise this as "10 lines"

Outbound calls:

I can only make 5 phone calls simultaneously (base FXS + 4 Linx). This means only 5 active "lines" can occur concurrently. When an addition call comes in, I get a call waiting signal and can answer that call by pushing "flash." I'm not sure how you can call that "10 lines." Even though you can have up to 10 telephone numbers, you can still only make 5 calls simultaneously. In a pbx, when you have 10 "lines" (10 telephone numbers), you can make 10 concurrent phone calls. Ooma can call it "10 lines" when Office allows 9 Linx and 10 concurrent conversations. Right now, Office allows only 4 Linx and 5 concurrent conversations.

Inbound calls:

According the the description of Office's web page, Office can have additional 15 virtual extensions, therefore can setup all 20 extensions to ring simultaneously (1 FXS, 4 Linx, 15 Virtual). Example: Let's say I have 15 cell phones and set them all up as virtual extensions. Then when I receive 20 calls simultaneously, I can have 20 people pick up all 20 phone calls, then you can have 20 concurrent conversations (granted that you have 15 cell phones pick up first leaving the Office available to route additional calls to the rest of the 5 physical extensions). So on the receiving end, you have 15 people on cell phones, 1 on the Office base FXS, and 4 on the Linx.

AFAIK, virtual extensions are not possible in a pbx.

Telo: Outbound calls - With Premier, I can make 2 concurrent phone calls, therefore it's a legitimate "2 lines." Inbound calls: I can actually setup a virtual extension with multiring. Example: Say I setup 2 HD handsets and my cell phone to multiring. When I receive 3 phone calls, I can have 3 concurrent conversations (granted that I use the cell phone to answer the 1st phone call, allowing the Telo to route 2 additional phone calls to the 2 HD handsets). I can actually setup additional extensions (more than 3) if I use google voice, but that's another topic.

Tom
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Re: Ooma Scout/Hub to Ooma Office?

Post by Tom » Mon May 27, 2013 10:25 am

Although Office can handle up to 5 physical lines, the 10 concurrent calls can possibly expand to virtual extensions?
Correct, I clarified my post to reflect that.
Lines are counted in the cloud. Five of them can terminate on CPE, the local Ooma hardware.
According the the description of Office's web page, Office can have additional 15 virtual extensions, therefore can setup all 20 extensions to ring simultaneously (1 FXS, 4 Linx, 15 Virtual).
You can have 20 extensions. They can be a mix of physical or virtual. The number of physical extensions is limited by the hardware to 5. You can distribute the available lines over any of these extensions. In other words you cannot have 20 extensions ringing. The maximum is 10.

Tuan
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Re: Ooma Scout/Hub to Ooma Office?

Post by Tuan » Mon May 27, 2013 10:55 am

Thanks for clarifying, but I'm still having a problem with Ooma calling it "10 lines," 5 physical and 5 in the cloud. This is why I believe the "10 line" terminology is misleading. I listed the Office as having only 5 lines, because I can only make 5 outbound calls simultaneously. This is only equivalent to a 5 line pbx for outbound calls. In a 10 line pbx, I can make 10 concurrent outbound calls.

Can a firmware update of the Office allow 9 Linx physical extensions? If this is possible, then the Office has the capability of making 10 concurrent outbound calls. But until this happens, I will challenge Ooma's claim of calling this feature as having "10 lines"

Another question relating to the cloud: When an inbound call is transferred from a physical extension to a virtual extension (e.g. Linx to a cell phone), is the inbound caller being connected to the cell phone via Ooma's server until they hang up? If so, then this can introduce possible voip delays. So far, all of the call transfers I've tested (about a dozen) work impressively well with no noticeable voip delays.

Tom
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Re: Ooma Scout/Hub to Ooma Office?

Post by Tom » Tue May 28, 2013 6:10 am

Remember the line concept is a cloud thing, because that's where the PBX lives. The Ooma hardware is just like having 5 separate phones. With Ooma Office the line concept that exists on the telo disappears.

As for your example, yes that call will take up a line in the cloud.

Tom
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Re: Ooma Scout/Hub to Ooma Office?

Post by Tom » Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:00 am

As of last night trunk (line) limits are now enforced. Forwarding currently requires 2 lines, since it involves both an inbound and outbound call. We're working to fix that.

Tom
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Re: Ooma Office Line Concept

Post by Tom » Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:42 pm

update to my earlier post on 5/26:

- An Ooma Office account can be provisioned up to a maximum of 10 lines (enforced on the server)
- Each line should be viewed as a trunk to the outside world (extension to extension calling uses no lines)

- An Ooma Office account can define up to 20 extensions. These can be a mix of physical or virtual extensions.
- You can distribute the available lines over any of these extensions, as follows:

- Physical extensions map to the Ooma Office base. The base supports up to 5 physical extensions (base phone + 4 Linx)*
- Virtual extensions map to outside parties ('outside' in the sense of outside the Ooma Office base, e.g. a cell number)**

- A physical extension can have up to 2 lines in use (one active and one onhold, or both active in a 3-way conference)
- A virtual extension only ever has 1 line in use (though forwarding an inbound call to the outside really takes 2 trunks)

- Telo does support ring groups
- Telo has no conferencing bridge, but does support 3-way conferencing

* HD2 support is coming (an HD2 counts as one physical extension just like a Linx)
** It doesn't make much sense but you can map a virtual to a physical extension

===========
FAQ

1. How many extensions can ring simultaneously?
=> 10 (which can be a mix of physical and virtual, but up to 5 physical)

2. How many lines are taken up when I forward a Linx to a cell number, but also ring the Linx?
=> 1 (only the inbound call is counted)

3. How many lines are taken up when a Linx calls the base phone or its own Virtual Receptionist?
=> 0 (inside calls don't count against lines)

4. How many calls can be active on the base at the same time?
=> 10 (each physical extension has a 3-way conference)

5. How many calls can be onhold on the base at the same time?
=> 5 (each physical extension has a call onhold)

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