Sipgate Team
A large userbase takes time to set up, but Sipgate Team delivers great cloud VoIP services at a low price
“If transferred calls aren’t answered after an extra time period, they can be sent to a mobile number and then on to voicemail”
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE From £15 exc VAT per month from sipgate.co.uk
If you don’t want the responsibility of installing and managing an on-site IP PBX, Sipgate Team could be the answer. Its modest starting price and monthly billing scheme make it accessible to small operators – and, as they grow, it can easily scale with them.
It’s simple to deploy: the package includes a SIP trunk connection, so all you have to provide are phones and headsets. A wide range of popular SIP-compatible IP desktop models are supported, and although Sipgate doesn’t provide its own softphone, it will work with most third-party products, including the free Zoiper, X-Lite and Telephone for Mac apps.
At £14.95 per month, the basic package gets you three users, three groups and three locations – these link different offices together within the same package, so that all voice calls between them are free. In addition to individual users, you can set up a phone number and extension for an group, which makes all member’s phones ring when called. Group numbers have their own voicemail, fax services and online settings, which are accessible by any member.
A big advantage of the cloud approach is that configuration can be done from anywhere via the web portal. We found this easy to use, but there was a certain amount of manual labour involved in getting our VoIP system up and running. Sipgate Team doesn’t offer import services, so each user must be added individually by entering a name, email address and office location, then assigning phone and extension numbers. You can get through this fairly quickly, though, and as each user is added, they’re automatically sent an email with their personal portal login details.
IP phones must be set up manually, but Sipgate does everything possible to make the process straightforward. After choosing our Yealink T23G IP phones from the dropdown list, we were presented with an illustration of their web interface, showing what account details we should enter where. Setting the Zoiper softphone app up was also painless. Sipgate offers a preconfigured Windows version of the client for download, while the iOS app can be set up by scanning in the QR code on Sipgate’s site and adding your account details.
Call-handling rules let you set a ring period of up to 45 seconds, after which calls can be transferred to another number, a user or voicemail. You can even create multiple rules, so if transferred calls aren’t answered after an extra time period, they can be sent to a mobile number and then on to voicemail.
The group auto-attendant feature is quite basic, though. All you can do is give callers an announcement telling them, for example, what extensions to call for specific services. Still, it’s easy to customise what callers hear: Sipgate’s Click2Record feature lets you record a new message directly from an IP phone.
If you need more flexibility, Sipgate’s Team Pro package starts at an extra £10 per month. This enables both call queueing and the interactive voice response (IVR) service, which provides a virtual switchboard for directing callers to users, devices or other IVR services. As well as creating public and private contact lists, users can view call logs and voicemail from their personal portal. Selecting a voice message gives options to call the number back, download an MP3 or listen to it from the portal or on your phone.
The setup process is tiresome, but it’s not something you’ll have to deal with every day and doesn’t undermine Sipgate Team’s appeal too much. With good call-handling features, simple web portal management and highly affordable pricing, it’s a great choice for SMBs wanting to make a painless switch to VoIP.