> > -----Original Message----- > > I finally managed to find the time to get thru Jim's podcast > > presentation on VOIP enabling a legacy PBX. Unfortunately it > > doesn't apply to our situation (our PBX is prehistoric so I'm > > hoping to do an outright * replacement), but the presentation > > is still great information. Much appreciated. > > Thanks much. What kind of PBX do you have?
Have you ever heard of TASCOM from Alston Tascom? Well, we have one of the originals. How would you like your answering service to depend on a 48 volt buss backplane system that has to have two working 71 MB MFM drives (one as backup) to be up and running. Sure it does screen pops and handles DID lines, but that's about all that it does. The voice greetings comes from a custom Dialogic server and voicemail is not even in the vocabulary. This thing probably should be keeping me up late at night, but its really not my problem. The funny part is I am being laid off at the end of the month so I don't know where that leaves things. I was thinking of going into business for myself. That way if things blow up (as they eventually will) I can charge some serious money for a change. Ah the joys. > > Are the telcos really running Asterisk on their test benches > > and getting worried? > > They are running it, but mostly because they have folks working there who > are geeks just like us. They are generally worried about a lot of things; I > won't claim that this is what is keeping them up at night, but they do > understand that emerging telephony represents a threat to their traditional > way of doing business. > > > I wonder what the chances are of them having a competitive product any > time soon. Probably not.... > > I know many individuals at Telcos who "get it", even at fairly high levels, > but for them to implement would be very tough because large companies > generally lack the entrepreneurial spirit necessary for this kind of stuff. > Not to say it can't happen (as I said, they have people who understand the > signifigance of this), but I don't believe they 'll be putting any of us out > of business any time soon. In fact, if you produce a product that addresses > a need they have, and can get it in front of the right people, with proper > support (i.e. backed by a company that has a track record they can get > comfortable with), you might be surprised at their level of interest. At > worst I think you would find that this stuff is at least not a dirty word to > them. Linux paved the way for all of this, by legitimizing open source > software. What telcos are probably going to be looking for are developed, > supported products that do not require a software development team to > support. Ya, that makes sense. They are already reselling a number of products at Aliant/Bell as it is. If I can get some Asterisk installs done well, I should start bugging some contacts. Do you think that "brick" servers are the way to go to enhance customer confidence? Thanks, Peter M. ******************************************************** Peter MacFarlane, ACP Network Administration & Programming Target Call Center/ Message Centre P.E.I. ********************************************************
