[asterisk-users] Feasability of using * for small appartment building?

[Greg Broiles]

On 7/7/06, augustynr <robert.augustyn at comtrexinc.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
>  I am considering using * to run the phones in the small(12 unit) apartment
> building and I am looking for your input. Does it make sense? What setup
> would you use? What works and what does not.

I would be very wary of putting the typical landlord in a position
where they're responsible for paying tenants' long distance bills and
then collecting from tenants; and being responsible for maintaining
phone service, supporting it, billing for it, turning it off when
people don't pay, etc.

Also, you're likely to run into competition from cell providers; lots
of people now use cell phones as their only phone, or primary phone.

Have you considered whether or not any residents will want/need to use
FAX or modems behind your equipment?

Further, this sort of configuration precludes the apartment residents
from getting DSL service - you'll also have to be an ISP.

Or .. if you provide net connectivity, or if they can get cable modem
service, they may avoid your captive VoIP and sign up for third-party
VoIP.

Also, this may turn out to be expensive if the tenants do unusual
things with the lines/jacks in their units - traditional telcos have a
lot of protection in place and use equipment designed to absorb
spikes, surges, shorts, and all of the other weird things that happen
when you expose your wiring to people who don't care what happens to
your equipment (or are actively hostile). I wouldn't want to let the
average apartment tenant get an opportunity to blow an expensive PCI
card because they monkeyed around with the wiring while installing an
extra extension on the other side of the bedroom.

If you are intending to share FXO ports among many tenants, you'll
also end up with weird caller ID - the outbound calls won't show the
caller ID of the tenant, but of the shared line, which will probably
seem like a disadvantage to the tenants; unless you force caller ID to
be blocked, which also might be a disadvantage.

I would be more inclined towards an all-VoIP scenario, which would let
you get caller ID set correctly (and let call recipients use *69 or
whatever the call-return feature is) - but now you've got to worry
about 911 calls, and find a DSL/net connection that provides something
approaching traditional "five nines" (99.999%) reliability.

Even so, I think this might turn out to be a disaster if you end up
with a few heavy users as tenants - bigger organizations can use the
law of large numbers to average out families with multiple teenagers
against mostly idle residential FAX lines, etc., so that their
user-to-facility ratios are reasonable while avoiding resource
shortages. A 12-unit building doesn't give you a great opportunity for
averaging - so if you end up with 4 or 5 units who are heavy telephone
users, you may end up needing to spend more to provide service than
you're charging for it.

Also, think about days like Mother's Day (do you do that in Canada?),
Christmas, etc., when residential phone usage tends to peak - if you
don't want pissed-off tenants/users, you'll need to provide facilities
adequate to meet peak demand, not just average demand.

I don't mean to be a grouch, but I think that people in North America
have pretty high standards for POTS service that are tough to meet as
a small provider, especially if this isn't your everyday business, and
especially where the users are often indifferent or hostile to the
service provider, as is typical in a rental setting.

Has your friend looked at providing coin-operated laundry machines? In
the US, there are a number of vendors who provide/maintain them on an
outsourced basis and simply write a check to the landlord every month
or so for the landlord's share of the amounts collected.

-- 
Greg Broiles, JD, LLM Tax, EA
gbroiles at gmail.com (Lists only. Not for confidential communications.)
Law Office of Gregory A. Broiles
San Jose, CA