Draytek VigorIPPBX 2820 review

There's support for simultaneous or sequential ring groups, voicemail, and a basic Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system in the form of its Auto Attendant, which can request callers to enter the extension they wish to reach, play an informational message and direct incoming calls in response to key presses. It has a basic office hours, out of office hours and holiday scheduler, allowing you direct calls to different extensions or play a recorded out of office message. There's no call forwarding, though, so you can't redirect calls to a mobile phone, for instance. The PBX Status screen includes a detailed log of all incoming and outgoing called.

An ISDN menu allows you to set the behaviour of the router's two ISDN ports. ISDN (integrated services digital network) is commonplace for business phone systems. While it can be used to connect to the internet if your ISP supports this, its primary function is for making and receiving telephone calls. Incoming calls will go to extensions on your IP PBX, while outgoing calls can be routed either via SIP or ISDN. Using ISDN for this means that you're not dependant on your net connection for your telephony services to work.

The router's ISDN configuration is particularly easy to set up - you just need to enter the numbers for the phone lines given to you by your ISDN provider and select how you want the router to handle calls to each number. You can choose to forward numbers to a specific extension, a ring group consisting of several extensions or have the router's built Auto Attendant answer the call.

Verdict

This device's IP PBX feature set is ideal for a small office. Although it's not as powerful or flexible as advanced dedicated IP PBX systems, it's incredibly simple to set up and did everything we asked of it. Call quality was excellent and we had no problem using it with our usual VoIP phones and softphones. The Vigor's capabilities as a router are as simple and effective as its IP PBX features. There's remarkably little on market to compare it to, as this is the first device we've seen from a major manufacturer to combine a router with an IP PBX. At around £370, it costs a little over twice as much as Draytek's standard Vigor 2820 router. Although it may be possible to buy a similarly specified dedicated IP PBX appliance and a separate router for a little less, configuration will certainly not be as simple as it has proved to be with the VigorIPPBX.

Physical Interfaces: LAN Ports (Switch) 1x Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mb/s) Ports 3x Megabit (100Mb/s) Ports ADSL Port (RJ11) Secondary WAN Port : 10/100 Ethernet for load balance and WAN failover USB Port for 3G Cellular Modem or Printer VoIP Ports: 1 Analogue Telephone Port 1 Analogue Line Port 2 ISDN S0 Busses (One fixed NT, one switchable NT/TE). 2 B-Channels Total. IP PBX Features: Up to 50 Extension profiles (user/phone accounts) Up to 30 simultaneous registered extensions - local or remote Up to 20 simultaneous calls Registration and authentication BLF (Busy-lamp Field) Hunting Group IVR (Interactive Voice Menus for callers) Calendar Dial Plan (Phone Book) Digit Map (Configurable dialling rules) Session Monitor Call Detail Records DID Extension privileges assign PIN code control Call barring & calling routing In/Outbound call through ISDN-TE interface User-defined prompts Automated attendant Voicemail for each extension Voice message to email MWI (Message Waiting Indicator) Music on Hold