Home Office Phone System - Recommendations

mtelliott · 02-12-2008, 04:29 PM

I'm now working out of the house and need to get a office phone system. Don't care about answering machine, but do need a good speakerphone and a good headset. Would like cordless option. Anyone have any suggestions?

Michael

Halm · 02-12-2008, 04:31 PM

Panasonic KX-TG2740. Been using it for 4 years and love it.

911Rob · 911Rob's Garage

Not hard to find a good system.

I'll chime in with some tips though; I've been working out of my home for 20 years now.
I have an office, my wife has an office and my kids have an office.

I have a business telephone line and a business dedicated fax line (only goes to my office, no one elses.) I have voicemail on my phone line. I also have a toll free number, fwiw; goes to my office phone. I don't recommend mixing phone and fax lines, I hate it when that happens, its unprofessional. During my peak development days, the fax would go off all day long and I'd have 3 fax machines in series to receive all the faxes.

Then I have another phone line for the house, with a smart ring feature, therefore we get two phone numbers with that line. One ring is my wifes/ our home line and the other ring is the kids line. Then when the phone rings, we're not jumping up if its for the kids? We have voice mail on those lines too.

My office has a two line phone, so I can answer any of the lines from there. The fax is set to answer without ringing, so it doesn't bother us at home; works silently; hardly get any faxes these days though.

Hope that helps you out a bit?
Have fun and enjoy your new home office.

mtelliott · 02-13-2008, 04:55 AM

Rob, very good advice. The beauty of my arrangement is that I can go into corporate when ever I want, but can work from home most times. I'm getting a laser printer with fax features so I'm covered for the few times I need to fax. The big thing for me is having a phone system that is equivalent to the system I would find at corporate. Which is a phone that allows me to be hands free, aka speaker phone and/or headset that is of high quality.

Hal, the reviews I read said that the battery life on the cordless handset was horrible. Did you find that to be the case?

Michael

Don Plumley · Don Plumley's Garage

To duplicate a high quality full duplex speakerphone look at the Polycom integrated phones. Frankly, in a home office setting you'll only use the speakerphone when on hold or dialing into a call - if you are the only person in your office it's kinda rude to use a speakerphone when you can use a headset (IMHO).

To get an idea of options of types of phones and great quality headsets, check out www.hellodirect.com. I have one of their reasonable headsets that I use on my cell phone (which is my home office phone).

Don

Halm · 02-13-2008, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtelliott

Hal, the reviews I read said that the battery life on the cordless handset was horrible. Did you find that to be the case?
Michael

Michael, I find that "talk time" is great. I can forget to recharge one and it still fine the next day. But there is a design problem of some sort with the phone/battery. I seem to have to replace them after 12-18 of use. At first this was pretty expensive, but now more and more places are stocking them and the prices have dropped.