An I.T ‘techy’ at my work mentioned I could try this forum for some general questions about relatively cheap VoIP solutions that I have not found answers to at various other places around the web.
I love using VoIP for calling internationally, and I am seriously thinking of starting my own company (yes, another voip dreamer!). I have a budget of about £8000 in savings.
list exactly the hardware and software required.
The corresponding prices for example starting at 1000 simulataneous calls
Whether there is really a sollution capable within my budget…
FYI: It will be a callcard based company not a softphone based. But will involve customers texting to get credit, and the server recognising their number via claler id when they call toll numbers.
I really appreciate anyones advise / comments / help
Can anyone give me the breakdown of estimated costs though?
I mean with all the software based switching and open source stuff like Asterisk, what is it that makes it so expensive?
Outsourced programmers, open source solutions, rentable and scalable hardware… am I missing something?
Well if your doing pure VOIP and not connecting to the PSTN you “only” need a server and bandwith. It’s been a while since I got a quote from a colocation but my guuess is you would be looking at about $2500/mo with a decent server and enough bandwith to handle 200-300 simultaneous calls. Costs would only go down slightly to handle fewer calls.
If you want to connect to PSTN you are looking at the costs above PLUS about $700-$1200 per T1\E1 port for PSTN connectivity PLUS the the monthly T1\E1 charge of roughly $750/mo PLUS the number of minutes used on PSTN. A single T1\E1 will only get you up to 24\30 calls so if you need more than that multiply the perport and per line charge by the number of lines needed.
So heres my quick and dirty estimates for 300 calls with 50-60 going to PSTN:
setup charges will vary but you have at least the $2000 for the T1\E1 cards.
monthly costs would be about $4000
so I would say with the quick and dirty conversion rate you would be out of money within 3 months unless you are one hell of a marketer\salesperson. Also remember the more customers you get the more your costs go up because bandwith and T1 line usage increases!