How many lines can Response Point support?
Recently there’s been a lot of confusion among the Response Point community about how many lines from the telephone company that the various Response Point systems can support.
The Syspine product comes in two versions, one which supports 4 lines and another which supports 8. As this is not a modular platform there currently is no way to either upgrade the 4-port unit to 8 ports, no less expand above 8 ports. We have heard from CMPTel (the primary Syspine distributor in the U.S.) that they do intend to have an ability to expand later this year (Q4, 2008) using some sort of gateway adapter which presumably would sit next to the main base station.
D-Link’s VoiceCenter product is a bit different in that the base station does not directly support any phone lines; it exclusively uses an external gateway adapter called the DVG-3104MS. This gateway supports 4 phone lines, and then uses the data network (there is an ethernet port on the gateway) to move the calls on towards the base station using the SIP network protocol. Up to 13 of these gateways can be conected to a single base station providing access to 50 lines connecting the Response Point system to the public telephone system.
Be sure to understand that this is the number of phone lines coming from your telephone company. Both of these Microsoft Response Point base stations can support up to 50 extensions/handsets attached to them regardless of the number of “outside lines” available. It’s just that not all of the handsets can handle an outside call at the same time, the number of simultanious call being limited by the number of outside lines available.
As the Syspine system is a fixed configuration, the confusion has mostly been around the DLink VoiceCenter and its external gateways. To clear the matter up we got in touch with one of our insiders on the DLink VoiceCenter product team. (It’s certainly beneficial to being just across town from their corporate headquarters!) Anyways, he made it clear that yes the VoiceCenter will currently support up to 50 analog lines using 13 gateways. He also hinted that when Service Pack 1 comes out this summer it will support a single SIP trunk to an internet telephone service provider.
John
The information on the number of lines is useful. I was under the impression that Syspine already had a 4-line add-on for their 4-line module. I do have another question, and I know this is technically the wrong place to ask it. However, does anyone know if the Syspine system allows call logging? I see that an apparently new version of Response Point has call logging. I don’t know if this version comes with the Syspine system or if it’s a free upgrade or service pack, etc. I contacted Syspine tech support, but their rep didn’t know, and didn’t see any mention of it in his literature. Our customer wants to print out a log of their calls so they can verify if a client has called or not.
You’re sort of right in regards to the 4-port add-on. The 8-port Syspine unit is essentially the 4-port model with an extra 4-port card installed in it. The only problem is that so far they have not made the cards available for purchase.
I am not aware of any Call Detail Reporting available in Response Point. While the Syspine phones themselves do keep a short history (last 10 calls) in them which is accessible through their web interface, it’s not really suitable for what you are describing. For now you’re probably going to be better off getting that information from your local service provider.
John
Regarding call logging – SP1 will have this. It’s likely to be quite basic but it’s 100% more than what’s available now!
Andrew.
I would advise to be cautious about this 50 line capability that is being touted. The maximum line limit on RP is not determined by the ability to add more ports. RP is limited by the maximum number of simultaneous IVR Sessions it can support (8 or 16 is the limit I believe). What this means is that if the max number of callers have dialed in simultaneously, the IVR cannot serve any more callers until one of the existing callers makes a selection and gets transferred.
There is an upgrade kit available to upgrade a 4-port Syspine unit to an 8-port unit.
Kashan,
I have heard rumors of 16 IVR sessions but have found no documentation which supports that position. As for the upgrade kit from 4 to 8 lines for the Syspine unit, we’ve heard that it will eventually be available but so far it hasn’t been in available in the channel yet. If you’ve found a way to source that kit I’d love to hear about it and get a part number for it.
John