Hey gang, I'm looking at escaping from a Nortel Meridian CISC system to Asterisk/Digium/SIP phones. I'm currently in the testing and proof of concept phase. I'm going to need a SIP phone and don't want to re-purchase and have "orphans" around.
We currently run Nortel 7310 phones and they work great. I'm sort of overwhelmed by all of the different IP phones. I was hoping some folks would share what they have found. My primary goal is to replicate the 7310's features and to allow room for growth in the future with telephony applications. Our primary driver is configurability and features that we can get in Asterisk, that we can get without a lot of money from Nortel. Namely- Voicemail, telecommuting workers on the pbx, better call handling, better automation. I'd like to be able to integrate smart features like directory and call handling to the handset, but I'll freely admit I'm just starting out. My initial goal is to just to get onto Asterisk and get it working. I'll worry about cool stuff later. Our integration and migration plan is as follows: If anyone has some suggestions or pointers I'd love to hear them. 1. Test and evaluate Asterisk with TDM400 with 1 FXO/FSO port each. 2. Configure Asterisk to be the primary PBX and slave the Nortel Meridian system to it using a second TDM400. This avoids immediate replacement of all handsets. Will allow immediate access to features such as Voicemail. 3. Overtime, upgrade desk phones to IP phones. When all phones are replaced, decommission Nortel and sell on Ebay. :) Cold turkey option is to spend the extra $ and buy the handsets upfront and just ditch nortel without a transition period. We currently have 4 pbx lines and 1 dedicated fax/credit card line. We have 10 handsets. Thanks, Brian Greul Texas Shirt Company www.txshirts.com 713-802-0369 / 713-861-6261 (fax) _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
