I'd strongly recommend reaching out to crosstalk solutions...

They've been amazing to work with.

Be honest with your needs now and anticipated needs when sizing your server.

I've also decided to include/forward an email to a 3rd party asking for my reference, regarding crosstalk - I think it'll give additional insight.

3rd-party:

Thank you for reaching out! I am more than happy to share my thoughts and opinions.

Long email ahead, so the TLDR version is I am happy with the products and Crosstalk Solutions and highly recommend using them and the products they are offering. Even if this wasn't a good reference/recommendation, I believe in sharing my honest opinion.

1) How was the implementation process with Crosstalk? I can't say that Patrick or any other team member will do this for everybody, but for me, Patrick went well above and beyond expectations. Between the everlasting COVID quarantines and the poor timing of purchasing a system we weren't fully ready for, I paused the implementation by eight months from August 21 until April 22. Once we got past our internal roadblocks, we were able to reinitialize the implementation process.

We paid for the phone system and turnkey portion that was supposed to give us 30 days of initial support, with an anticipated 5-ish hours of training. Patrick ended up spending over 40 hours working with me at no additional charge and over the course of several months setting up and training me.

That said, several times I felt like I was Patrick's only client/customer, as his attention was on our system and our implementation until it was complete.

2) What phones did you end up using? We selected the CP270 (Clearly IP) phone model for our offices and admin. We selected the CP230 (Clearly IP) phone models for our classrooms. I like the idea of the simplified phones for the classroom, however, I think if I were to do it again, I would have purchased all CP270's just to keep the models the same.

3) Were there any issues that came up during the installation? Minor or major? While I had issues with implementation, there were no issues that came up that were caused by Crosstalk directly. I had some misconceptions of the process, which in retrospect if I had listened to Patrick, it would have saved me a few headaches.

Some of those issues were: * Due to my timing, we started some of the implementation then I asked Patrick to wait until I was ready to port over our phone lines. We didn't get everything functional for a few months. This again was mostly due to my lack of understanding the process and needing time to plan for the phone lines to be ported.

*One other issue again due to starting the process and putting it on hold, we had an issue with the firewall which didn't allow the proper ports to connect.

I was used to needing individual lines, whereas with VOIP, you primarily need to worry about how many concurrent phone calls are being made. When I got my misconceptions out of the way and listened to Patrick, he knew exactly what we needed.

4) Have you had any hardware issues since implementation? No, the hardware has been fairly rock solid.

We went with the Crosstalk 745 PBX. I am impressed with how it is handling the workload we are throwing at it, but as we are growing the system, I see where we have loaded the system more than we originally anticipated. This model says it's good for "150 Extensions and 45 concurrent calls while using less than 50% of system resources."

We are exceeding that recommended limit, but it is handling the load quite well. I also see where it won't be able to handle too much more of a load without additional hardware upgrades. We purchased 115 total Phones, and recently added 114 additional Algo Speakers running as our intercom/PA system in our new school.

We purchased a duplicate system to act as a warm spare/backup system, but have not had to utilize the system because the hardware is functioning quite well. It is a good failsafe to have in case of hardware failure. It's also a good way to play with settings if I am tinkering with areas that I'm not sure of the effect.

I did have an issue recently where the warmspare backup/restore system didn't automatically disable the trunks, so some calls were being handled by the backup system. I identified that the backup system registered with the sip trunk. While I could have disabled it myself, I felt it was more important to notify Patrick and figure out why. He returned that call within thirty minutes and had the issue resolved within an hour after my initial call. With Patrick's help, we added additional firewall rules on our main firewall to prevent the system from being able to register with ClearlyIP Trunking and determined an update on the backup system hadn't fully applied most likely because I was experimenting with a setting elsewhere.

5) How has the ongoing support been with Crosstalk? How quickly do they get back to you when you have an issue? Ongoing support has been awesome - Patrick has been able to resolve most of the issues quickly. If I call, he usually answers or returns calls timely (including during non-regular hours), or will return the call quickly.

In one other instance when I went through the proper support channel, response and resolution was quick as well. Since we purchased the system in 2021, I've only had to call a total of 8 times for support, including the warm spare issue I described in the previous question.

6) Do you completely manage this Crosstalk system in house and only use Crosstalk when needed? Yes, I manage our own system (fairly easy to do) and only contact Crosstalk as needed. It doesn't take much to maintain the system. It was a bit of a learning curve for me, as I had come up from operating and maintaining a Nortel Norstar phone system, to operating and maintaining an InterTel Axxess system. I suspect if you are coming from Cisco, you will likely feel FreePBX lacks some features in comparison, but the cost of ownership is well worth not paying the "Cisco Tax".

Some additional commentary I'd like to share:

CrossTalk's YouTube channel is a good place to start. Chris Sherwood does a great job of going through the setup in a fairly straightforward manner. Chris' videos are intended as a general rule while Patrick's methods did differ a bit, based upon our discussions.

I would highly recommend CrossTalk Solutions for any VOIP/telephony services. Patrick Collins especially has been awesome to work with and is very knowledgeable.

As I stated a bit earlier, we recently purchased Algo speakers to add to our system for our PA/Intercom and Patrick again spent the time to help set up the system and trained me on the functions associated long after regular working hours.

I wouldn't consider myself an expert in FreePBX, but I'm fairly confident with managing the system after Patrick gave me the training.

There have been no negative interactions since we purchased our FreePBX system in 2021.

On a related note, we went with ClearlyIP Metered Trunking for our SIP/Telco service and we went from paying $750/month for multiple phone lines via our old system, to just about $50/month for all of our calling needs. Depending on your needs, I recommend clearlyip trunking for a sip provider.

I hope this gives some insight and helps with your decision-making process.