Hi All,

I have had a moment of clarity and I think I need to rethink my business strategy with regard to FS for SMALL Businesses (less than 5 DIDs and 5 phones/extensions).  To date I have attempted to HOST the customers phone services on a multitenant FS box “in a bunker”.  This has led to many setbacks due to NAT issues on the CLIENT end with different router and phone hardware.  Perhaps I have a self-imposed problem that could be easily rectified. 

My strategy has been to be sure the switch is always reachable and route to alternate phones or voicemail if the client site is unreachable.  I had thought this would provide for the highest availability of inbound call handling.  I now think installing a FS PC onsite maybe be far simpler provided that the VOIP provider can handle routing to a failover switch.

So I am considering changing from:   <FS> -- public IP -- <internet> -- <NAT Router> -- Nat’ed client phones  

to:    <internet> -- <NAT Router> -- Nat’ed FS  -- local lan – non-nat phones

I am looking for folks to talk about this configuration with FS NATed/Port Forwarded or FS dual home IP with a public IP and a nat ip.  Many small businesses can’t provide a public IP.  In fact most will occasionally have their public IP change without notice.  Clearly the VOIP provider will have to be updated with the new address.  Is there a slick way to handle that problem?

How well has this configuration worked for other people?

Thanks,

Sean