On Sat, 2003-06-28 at 02:10, Jim Gottlieb wrote: > On 2003-06-27 at 14:24, Chip Mefford ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > Is anyone actually using * as a primary phone system in > > a small/medium sized business with more than a dozen > > stations and a real receptionist who handles calls? > > As impressed as I am with asterisk, and as happy as we are with it as > the basis for our IVR/conferencing application, I don't think it is > ready to replace a real PBX for general office use.
I would have to disagree. The only reason I hadn't answered this message before is Chip wanted to know about setups with a receptionist. Our office has been using asterisk as our pbx for over a year now. Granted we are a small office of only 5 people, but it hasn't failed us yet. > And it doesn't have to because they can work together. There are a lot > of very reasonably priced systems on the used market. For example, we > use an Eon Millennium (ne ITT 3100) that we picked up fully loaded for > a few thousand dollars, and for VoIP/IVR/ACD/VM we connect to an > asterisk server through its PRI interface. But the PBX itself provides > the standard features like nice feature phones (available refurbished > for one-third the price of a Cisco 7960), busy lamp / DSS consoles, and > ARS tables, that are nicer than anything you could cobble together > easily with asterisk at this point. When you remove the need for a receptionist and if your IVR is setup up well enough that a caller doesn't need to be transfered usually after connected to a user, then all those features on a fancier phone aren't used. I consider the company we had split from to me fairly average, and all the extra buttons on their Intertel system only makes it more likely to drop a call. I think if you consider the average company and down to home use, then add in those companies that are willing to simplify the phone system, you will see a large amount of people ready for a asterisk system. You point out how asterisk can make headway into the those systems that need more. -- Steven Critchfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
