SECURITY ALERT (September 2011): Do NOT put phones on static IP addresses directly on the Internet. If there is no other option, you must at least disable port 80 (WWW) inbound to any phone device. If this precaution is not taken, OnSIP is not liable for any charges you may incur due to access to the phones.

Hardware Phones

Please talk to an OnSIP sales rep about purchasing phones that are pre-configured for easy setup with an OnSIP account, or shop at our preferred vendor: VoIP Supply.

Our recommendations can also be found in this VoIP Phones Guide.

As always, you are free to purchase your phones elsewhere if you wish, and our service is compatible with many phones. (We do not recommend purchasing phones secondhand as they may be locked down by other providers and difficult or impossible to unlock.) If you have any questions regarding compatibility, we encourage you to call our Customer Success team prior to purchasing.

Software Phones

We recommend the OnSIP app, our on-the-go business phone, and complete desk phone replacement. The app is available on the web at app.onsip.com (no plugins or downloads required). You can also download the desktop version for Mac and for Windows operating systems, as well as the mobile app for iOS and for Android in their respective app stores.

OnSIP is also compatible with any 3rd party SIP-compliant softphone, if you prefer to continue using one. However, OnSIP-specific features such as presence will not work.

Routers

Our current recommendations for business routers can be found in this VoIP Router Guide, categorized by price range.

Example Scenario

A company of forty users in two separate offices wants to use OnSIP Hosted PBX for phone connectivity. What is the best investment for hardware and performance?

Solution

In our experience, Cisco and Polycom both have reliable and well performing equipment. We chose and tested the equipment featured in the scenario below based on our experience with a wide variety of routers and phones.

Chicago

The Chicago office has ten users, who have PCs and Polycom phones. Users connect to OnSIP Hosted PBX for phone service and use app.onsip.com to communicate with their colleagues. The Cisco 871 is designed for an office of about this size. Here are our configuration instructions.

New York

The New York office has thirty users, who have PCs and Polycom phones. Users connect to OnSIP Hosted PBX for phone service and use app.onsip.com to communicate with their colleagues. The Cisco 1811 is designed for an office of about this size. Here are our configuration instructions.

Why Cisco Routers?

Cisco routers are a great favorite because of their reliability and performance. Furthermore they are one of the few routers on the market that we've found correctly implement a SIP ALG. ALGs are intended to assist various protocols in correctly traversing a NAT. While OnSIP does NAT detection on the server side to assist with this process (in the event that a router does not implement a SIP ALG), it is preferable for the remote device to be able to correctly handle ALG functionality when possible. Unfortunately many routers targeted at home office and small business environments have SIP ALGs which are broken.

When two phones are behind two different routers running NAT with functioning SIP ALGs, the media stream will take the shortest path between the two networks. This means that the packets use the most efficient network routes across the Internet and between the phones, rather than having to route through OnSIP proxy servers, which results in a better quality phone calls.

Updated January 2017