broc Posted August 1, 2012 Posted August 1, 2012 (edited) If you think Avaya is expensive & a lock in, try Cisco....... they are in a different league. There are some good discounts on Avaya if you are prepared to negotiate. Edited August 1, 2012 by broc
FragglePete Posted August 1, 2012 Posted August 1, 2012 We went Splicecom at our place, replaced an ageing Toshiba Strata system with a full on VOIP system. See my blog post (VOIP'd up! - Blogs - EduGeek.net). Working well so far and well recieved. Not the easiest to manage in my book but the supplier have been fantastic and it's great being able to put a phone wherever there is a network port. There was a lot of planning beforehand though. Pete
nicholab Posted August 2, 2012 Posted August 2, 2012 I would go VOIP but not get a system form the big boys like Cisco or Avaya they are so difficult to do any thing with!!
twin--turbo Posted August 2, 2012 Posted August 2, 2012 ? In what way is it difficult to do things with cisco? Rob
nicholab Posted August 2, 2012 Posted August 2, 2012 Call manager is not fun to use if you don't use it every day also you need a Cisco router to act as voice gateway. I don't like the Cisco system as you need a supplier to come in and install the system as it is so complicated. Also remember you need to apply Qos to your switches.
twin--turbo Posted August 2, 2012 Posted August 2, 2012 Yeah, it's a bit of a monster if your on one of the full server products. I was given a 15 minuet "This is how it works" by the installer 4 years ago and have just had to learn it all myself. I had to try and train one of the guys the basics of how to administer the system for when I leave and we spent two days and by the end of day 2 he had already forgotten day 1. I guess there is a question of who is to manage the system and how easy it would be to do so? I keep meaning to try Asterix, I have the disk on my desk in the dining room but other things get in the way. Rob
snoerre Posted August 3, 2012 Posted August 3, 2012 Has anyone ever tried openUC Enterprise - eZuce (==kind of enhanced SIPXEC commercial edition)?
twin--turbo Posted August 4, 2012 Posted August 4, 2012 FreePBX is brilliant. I rolled out 70 handsets on an Old Dl380 G4 running FreePBX and SIP Trunks for about 5k. Well going to have some free time each week so I may have another play with FreePBX ( well it was plain Asterix last time I had a look) for my own satisfaction. What was the bulk of the cost in the £5K? was it just the handsets? Rob
twin--turbo Posted August 4, 2012 Posted August 4, 2012 you need a Cisco router to act as voice gateway. You don't have to, and with the move away from fixed lines to SIP the need for any voice router is even less of a problem. Rob
glennda Posted August 4, 2012 Posted August 4, 2012 (edited) Well going to have some free time each week so I may have another play with FreePBX ( well it was plain Asterix last time I had a look) for my own satisfaction. What was the bulk of the cost in the £5K? was it just the handsets? Rob Yes - as we already had the server to run it (can also be run in a VM) and using SIP trunks instead of ISDN we didn't require additional hardware for the server (as in ISDN cards etc). I got 36 @~£89 x Yealink T28p and 36 @~£56 x Yealink T20p. With the ability to Auto Provision these Yealink Handsets easily - see my other post regarding that took about 20 mins for all phones and plugged them in and they configured themselves. These phones also come pre packed with a Power Supply if POE isn't available whereas with a lot of the other phones you have to buy them seperatly. For Failover and ease of setup rather then setting up the phone system with a PSTN failover in the event of sip/power failure we got a PSTN line installed in the Admin office Otherwise we would of had to run half the school on UPS's Edited August 4, 2012 by glennda
twin--turbo Posted August 4, 2012 Posted August 4, 2012 Just installed FreePBX on a VirtualBox. Just need to get some SIP phones now to test ( I have a couple of SCCP phones but I don't want to upset them ) Is there a recomended free desktop SIP client for linux that works well with FREEPBX? Rob
glennda Posted August 4, 2012 Posted August 4, 2012 Just installed FreePBX on a VirtualBox. Just need to get some SIP phones now to test ( I have a couple of SCCP phones but I don't want to upset them ) Is there a recomended free desktop SIP client for linux that works well with FREEPBX? Rob xlite I think works on linux and is quite good
Geoff Posted August 5, 2012 Posted August 5, 2012 Xlite is cross platform and works great. For linux look at either linphone or sparkle. On windows you also have the option of Zoiper Lite. Not sure what the deal is on Mac OSX as it's something I've never had to tackle.
nicholab Posted August 5, 2012 Posted August 5, 2012 SIP trunks are ok if you get the management buy in and have the right set-up to support it.
twin--turbo Posted August 5, 2012 Posted August 5, 2012 Xlite is cross platform and works great. For linux look at either linphone or sparkle. On windows you also have the option of Zoiper Lite. Not sure what the deal is on Mac OSX as it's something I've never had to tackle. Could only see Mac and windows Xlite on the counterpath website, I used the client last year against our CCM and it worked ok but I thought they had stopped the free version. Rob
twin--turbo Posted August 5, 2012 Posted August 5, 2012 SIP trunks are ok if you get the management buy in and have the right set-up to support it. I need to get a couple of channels and test them on the Call manager so we can dump the ISDN30. Rob
Geoff Posted August 5, 2012 Posted August 5, 2012 Could only see Mac and windows Xlite on the counterpath website, I used the client last year against our CCM and it worked ok but I thought they had stopped the free version. Rob Its not available on their website, but you can get Xlite 3 elsewhere on the internet.
nicholab Posted August 6, 2012 Posted August 6, 2012 The advise with a phone system is that you have 1 PSTN line for emergencies.
Geoff Posted August 6, 2012 Posted August 6, 2012 In a school environment I suspect it would be a legal requirement.
twin--turbo Posted August 6, 2012 Posted August 6, 2012 We have a PSTN of the phone system for total emergancies, and a failback to ISDN2 if there is a problem on the ISDN30. If we move to SIP we would retain the ISDN2 and certainly keep a stand alone PSTN unit. Rob
SchoolsBroadband Posted August 7, 2012 Posted August 7, 2012 We have a PSTN of the phone system for total emergancies, and a failback to ISDN2 if there is a problem on the ISDN30. If we move to SIP we would retain the ISDN2 and certainly keep a stand alone PSTN unit. Rob Just my bit but i'd recommend you look for a SIP / leased line provider that can provider guaranteed QOS or a dedicated VLAN across their network back to the SIP softswitch. I've seen a lot of SIP trunks simply not work correctly because there's no guaranteed VoIP prioritisation over the network. Don't get me wrong SIP will work 99% of the time but users will always shout and remember that 1% of time when it doesn't! Ref 999; I'd need to double check but I think Ofcom made it a legal requirement about a year ago that if you deliver outbound calls over SIP if the provider is in the UK then they're supposed to offer breakout to 999 emergency services.
cpjitservices Posted August 22, 2012 Posted August 22, 2012 Anybody know any way to contact the folks at Avaya, I'm looking to get some quotes! Tried there email on the website and it seems to not work!
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now