With over 100 active groups and nearly 5,000 users, NTEN's Affinity Groups platform is an incredible resource for those in the nonprofit tech community. Recently, in the general NTEN Discuss group, an informative discussion occurred about replacing traditional phone systems with VOIP. Many told of seamless transitions, and one participant offered some general guidelines:

• Select VOIP phones that have an extra "out" Ethernet port for the user's PC so multiple jacks are not required
• Select phones and switches that support Power over Ethernet (POE)
• Set up the phone switch on a separate VLAN from your network
• Test your cable and upgrade to Gigabit ethernet for added bandwidth
• Select phones with nice displays/handsets if possible, since this is what users see
• Voicemail features are a must, but "universal inboxes" (voicemail over email) is usually more complicated, expensive, and underutilized
• Softphone features are required for travel

Additionally, some specific solutions were recommended:

• Altigen
• EasyOfficePhone
• 3Com NBX system
• Recycle an old box and run asterisk, Elastix, or Trixbox with FXO cards and Polycom phones

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