Exchange working with externally hosted mail - and VoIP?

We are a small company with sbs2000 and win2kpro clients. We have a
static ip dsl with mx records pointing to our exchange 2000 and it all
works well.

I've been asked to investigate savings on broadband line costs and the
use of voip phone services like that offered by vonage and brighthouse.

The first theory is that we're paying for a business class dsl line more
or less just for the email pointing capability. If the line service was
replaced by a residential class line ( this is possible, I checked) or
even a dial up it would save line costs - but we could not have the MX
pointed to our static ip? If we had our mail hosted externally, by
pointing MX to our existing external web hosting service could we still
use exchange and not change our client configurations? Could exchange
pull the mail from one or more pop accounts but in all else still work
the same?


Also the costs for our phone service could be significantly reduced if a
voip service with free calls could be used. This apparently requires
90kbps per session but could use existing bandwidth. Has anyone
experience with this?

thanks.

Mike.

Kevin
Wed Jan 26 18:55:27 CST 2005

Several issues with business class vs a residential class DSL line:

1. Many DSL / ISP vendors will not allow or support a server (SBS) to be
running on a residential grade line. Saying that, there are plenty of places
(myself included) running SBS on a residential DSL connection just fine.

2. Generally with business class you get a static IP address, whereas with
residential you get a dynamic IP address. But that's not a stopping point
either, as there ar eplenty of companies (TZO, DynDNS, etc) that provide
Dynamic DNS support. I use it for my home server, and Exchange works just
great!

As to VOIP, there is a lot of talk and effort going on in this arena as
well. Our local SBS user group had a recent discussion about it, and it was
also talked about at Harry Brelsford's recent SMB nationwide tour. One
solution mentioned for the SBS marketplace was Vonexus:
http://www.vonexus.com/


--
Kevin Weilbacher [SBS-MVP]
"The days pass by so quickly now, the nights are seldom long"


"mike" <mike@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95EAB0FC53E3Cmikenospamcom@207.46.248.16...
> We are a small company with sbs2000 and win2kpro clients. We have a
> static ip dsl with mx records pointing to our exchange 2000 and it all
> works well.
>
> I've been asked to investigate savings on broadband line costs and the
> use of voip phone services like that offered by vonage and brighthouse.
>
> The first theory is that we're paying for a business class dsl line more
> or less just for the email pointing capability. If the line service was
> replaced by a residential class line ( this is possible, I checked) or
> even a dial up it would save line costs - but we could not have the MX
> pointed to our static ip? If we had our mail hosted externally, by
> pointing MX to our existing external web hosting service could we still
> use exchange and not change our client configurations? Could exchange
> pull the mail from one or more pop accounts but in all else still work
> the same?
>
>
> Also the costs for our phone service could be significantly reduced if a
> voip service with free calls could be used. This apparently requires
> 90kbps per session but could use existing bandwidth. Has anyone
> experience with this?
>
> thanks.
>
> Mike.

KevinK
Thu Jan 27 13:49:01 CST 2005

The other Kevin did not mention that you can have your ISP or hosting company
be your mail host, and use the POP3 connector to download e-mails, and yes
everything stays the same.
Although I lot of people up here do not like the MS POP3 connector,
personally I've had no complaints.

I would run the numbers though.
If you drop your DSL you need a phone line, a modem and depending on your
ISP a dialup account.
How much time are you going to spend reconfiguring.
If you send a lot of mail, particularly big files, consider the difference
in time.
Do you use the DSL line for anything else, web surfing WORK RELATED. Travel
plans, information lookup, downloading patches ...
Then how quickly might you grow, hopefully, to get back to requiring that
DSL speed for everything. Saving 20 or 30 bucks a month now, and in a year
or two having to revert back could wipe that out.

Kevin K.

"mike" wrote:

> We are a small company with sbs2000 and win2kpro clients. We have a
> static ip dsl with mx records pointing to our exchange 2000 and it all
> works well.
>
> I've been asked to investigate savings on broadband line costs and the
> use of voip phone services like that offered by vonage and brighthouse.
>
> The first theory is that we're paying for a business class dsl line more
> or less just for the email pointing capability. If the line service was
> replaced by a residential class line ( this is possible, I checked) or
> even a dial up it would save line costs - but we could not have the MX
> pointed to our static ip? If we had our mail hosted externally, by
> pointing MX to our existing external web hosting service could we still
> use exchange and not change our client configurations? Could exchange
> pull the mail from one or more pop accounts but in all else still work
> the same?
>
>
> Also the costs for our phone service could be significantly reduced if a
> voip service with free calls could be used. This apparently requires
> 90kbps per session but could use existing bandwidth. Has anyone
> experience with this?
>
> thanks.
>
> Mike.
>

Jim
Sat Jan 29 10:07:25 CST 2005

You have not posted your current phone usage and configuration. There
are plenty of providers out there that can supply you with a T1 that
does internet and dial tomes for less that what some local phone
companies charge for just dial tones. I have one account using one
Vonnage but it starts with him having multiple real world ips
available.

Note that many residential class dsl have 200k outgoing. Incoming
download speed has nothing to do woith outgoing speed which is where
the voip happens. 3 outgoing phonecalls and you are stuck. Can't get
that third one to start up. Internet surfing stinks when phone calls
start sucking up too much bandwidth.

mike <mike@nospam.com> wrote:

>We are a small company with sbs2000 and win2kpro clients. We have a
>static ip dsl with mx records pointing to our exchange 2000 and it all
>works well.
>
>I've been asked to investigate savings on broadband line costs and the
>use of voip phone services like that offered by vonage and brighthouse.
>
>The first theory is that we're paying for a business class dsl line more
>or less just for the email pointing capability. If the line service was
>replaced by a residential class line ( this is possible, I checked) or
>even a dial up it would save line costs - but we could not have the MX
>pointed to our static ip? If we had our mail hosted externally, by
>pointing MX to our existing external web hosting service could we still
>use exchange and not change our client configurations? Could exchange
>pull the mail from one or more pop accounts but in all else still work
>the same?
>
>
>Also the costs for our phone service could be significantly reduced if a
>voip service with free calls could be used. This apparently requires
>90kbps per session but could use existing bandwidth. Has anyone
>experience with this?
>
>thanks.
>
>Mike.

Jim B. SBS Community Member
remove the mvp to send email

mike
Mon Jan 31 21:05:33 CST 2005

Thanks to everyone that replied. Here's some answers to the questions
asked;

Phone useage; We run an analog phone switch with five lines in a rolling
group plus a fax/dsl circuit. Stats from switch show we haven't used more
than three lines concurrently for the last year. Most usage is in local
extended calling areas with 30% being long distance out of state/country.

It doesn't appear that voip can work as a rolling group and no statements
as to whether the lines will work with an analog switch.

Our existing dsl service is 3mbps/768kbps. The same service with static
ip in a residential charge is $179 a month cheaper. We can get extra 5
ip's for $20 per month. We cannot have mail (mx) pointed to our static
since that needs an A record also, and apparently port 25 is blocked on
residential services. loking at Dynamic dns services but the charges
would reduce the cost savings.

I'm testing the MS POP3 connector for exchange 2000 with an isp based
account held wth our web hosting and it seems to work ok, and no change
in our exchange/outlook apps or real world changes in delivery times.

Since the majority of our business is transacted via email I'm gong to
recommend that the dsl business/dsl savings of around $1.5k per year
isn't worth the risk to the email service and the savings could easily be
taken up in support costs with another connection method.

We are going to set up a voip trial and see how it works.

rgrds




Jim Behning <jimbehningmvp@atl.mindspring.com> wrote in
news:ttcnv0llrtb1rg0itbingebgcale5r8kvr@4ax.com:

> You have not posted your current phone usage and configuration. There
> are plenty of providers out there that can supply you with a T1 that
> does internet and dial tomes for less that what some local phone
> companies charge for just dial tones. I have one account using one
> Vonnage but it starts with him having multiple real world ips
> available.
>
> Note that many residential class dsl have 200k outgoing. Incoming
> download speed has nothing to do woith outgoing speed which is where
> the voip happens. 3 outgoing phonecalls and you are stuck. Can't get
> that third one to start up. Internet surfing stinks when phone calls
> start sucking up too much bandwidth.
>
> mike <mike@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>We are a small company with sbs2000 and win2kpro clients. We have a
>>static ip dsl with mx records pointing to our exchange 2000 and it all
>>works well.
>>
>>I've been asked to investigate savings on broadband line costs and the
>>use of voip phone services like that offered by vonage and brighthouse.
>>
>>The first theory is that we're paying for a business class dsl line
more
>>or less just for the email pointing capability. If the line service
was
>>replaced by a residential class line ( this is possible, I checked) or
>>even a dial up it would save line costs - but we could not have the MX
>>pointed to our static ip? If we had our mail hosted externally, by
>>pointing MX to our existing external web hosting service could we still
>>use exchange and not change our client configurations? Could exchange
>>pull the mail from one or more pop accounts but in all else still work
>>the same?
>>
>>
>>Also the costs for our phone service could be significantly reduced if
a
>>voip service with free calls could be used. This apparently requires
>>90kbps per session but could use existing bandwidth. Has anyone
>>experience with this?
>>
>>thanks.
>>
>>Mike.
>
> Jim B. SBS Community Member
> remove the mvp to send email
>