PBX and VOIP

[D-Bone]

So here is the situation. We had a power outage on Monday here at the store. When the power came back on, we lost voicemail functionality due to some stupid old proprietary box we have running our PBX phone system. Its way to expensive to fix it. So I'm looking for a new solution.

Our current setup is as follows:
6 voice lines
1 fax line
1 line for DSL
1 data line for credit card machine, testing modems in service, etc.
1 800 number

All the standard office features... multiple extensions, voicemail, conferenceing, intercom paging, on hold, transfering, etc.

Here is what I would like to do. Move as much as possible away from qwest go with a voip service. We would need to keep the fax and data line from qwest and we can move the dsl line to the fax number. It would be nice to get 6 vonage lines through their small business setup and then run that to a new PBX system. The questions are...

Has anyone ever attempted that?
Is it worth trying to use our existing phones or get new IP based phones?
Has anyone ever heard of these guys? http://www.nch.com.au/pbx/index.html
Is there a better solution that I need to be made aware of?

Overall goals are keeping the initial cost down as low as possible and moving to a more cost effective solution.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[{OOE}Death]

First don't put the fax on the DSL line, bad mojo. Keep the DSL alone. Share the fax with the CC machine. If you're going to vonage, that is basically just 1FBs you can't use your phones from the old PBX unless you replace the old PBX with a new one that can use the phones. For voicemail hmmm too many options. The ip thing is stupid for the number of phones you guys will be running. Not at all cost effective. Best bet is to get an all in one system. Several come to mind. ESI, Panasonic, vodavi, NEC, just to name a few. How much money do you have to play with. What features do you need, want, and can live without.

[D-Bone]

We are probably looking at replacing the whole thing cause its all old and crappy. If we can keep it under 2 grand I think that would be doable. Features we need are mainly standard stuff. 15 extensions, voicemail, hold, transfer, conference, intercom paging.

The reason I was looking at IP phones is because of our wiring situation. Its a pretty old building and all the punchdowns are upstairs in the attic. I am trying to get everything moved down from there so we can easily get to it. So instead of having to redo all the phone lines, it would just be easier to plug the phones into a network drop and then put the new PBX system back by the servers.