From Startupping Wiki
[edit] Finding Office Space
[edit] Phone Systems
Communication systems are key in any business. Telephone systems have changed more recently to use COTS components which lower cost and curb vendor lock-in. Open Source Software like the Asterisk PBX have pushed production of low cost VoIP telephone sets and infrastructure. Open Source consultants can develop solutions faster to meet the needs of clients. Older companies manage telephone communications with their maintenance department along with electricity and other utilities that the company can not work with out. The management of the telephone systems by maintenance departments has lead to outsourced system operation and maintenance.
The barrier that exist with proprietary telephone systems is one of scale. Companies that sell and install embedded telephone systems size the PBX for the installed situation. The result of this is that any intended upgrade requires a new PBX or switch be install, leading to vendor lock-in. Using a VoIP PBX solves many issues internally by lowering the scale cost. The use of VoIP should always be discussed as two topics, internal communications, and external communications.
Security in telephone systems is at a breaking point. Users reliance on caller ID and general social engineering have increased risks. Business process is where security should begin. The loss of data or other personnel information can be devastating and leads companies to create plans and limit the amount of data in one system. Facsimile telephoned documents or Faxes for short are still legally binding ways of communication. Verifying incoming and outgoing faxes is a costly endeavor that most groups look beyond. Faxes and external VoIP are also problematic, the flow of data over a digital medium can deliver parts of the stream out of order and thus causing a blip that most new faxes machines halt on.
[edit] Experiences
We've recently been evaluating phone systems for a new office. After being quoted a lot of money (both setup and monthly) for a full on VOIP system, we did some research on our own and turned up the following PBX options.
- Asterisk - open source PBX. If you're comfortable messing around in Linux. We don't have the time.
- Fonality - Asterisk pre-installed and configured on a box. Some commentary from customers
- Switchvox - Asterisk pre-installed and configured on a box, along with a UI that hides it all from you.
- TalkSwitch - Small business PBX. Up to 4 of them are networkable. Looks really easy to setup but each box gives you a limited number of local extensions. The Asterisk systems have no limits on extensions.
With each of these systems you can decide what technology to use for your internal phone system (PSTN, VOIP) and to interface with the outside world (same options). I haven't heard about good experiences with Broadvoice, Vonage and other VOIP providers for phone out. But using VOIP on the internal system seems like a great idea, and means you only need to distribute ethernet to all your workstations, rather than ethernet and phone. Many IP phones will have an ethernet pass-through so you only need one ethernet cable.
[edit] Co-working
I've been looking into the idea of co-working spaces. These are shared offices where you can "rent" a desk for a day, month, however long you need. It's a new-ish idea and people are trying all kinds of different setups from coffee shop style to more formal offices. Some have big conference rooms, quiet phone rooms, all the way up to receptionists and mail services. A lot of startups don't need or can't afford actual office space but working from home isn't, well, workable in a lot of cases and places like these can be a nice option.
The Co-Working Wiki has links to a bunch of different ones in different cities. The most lively ones seem to be in NYC and the SF Bay area.
- Work with some Mom and Pop companies on shared office space, the older the better.