Chris,
Having come from a background in systems this size, I follow what you're
on about.
>as an IT person you can really limit your career if you
> get the phones wrong! :-)
Asterisks isn't going to set you wrong because there is so much vested
international interest in getting it right.
Frankly I think that you need to get a 4 line board from Hads and a
couple of IP phones, set up a system and test it out.
Clearly you're interested in the technology and setting up a proof of
concept system will allow you to get a really good feel for the
technology so you can put your other providers thru their paces.
Out of interest, why are you getting rid of the Nortel system?
What features/benefits are you looking for.
The obvious benefit of Asterisk is that you'll get feature updates that
you can apply when you want and it's not going to cost you a service
call out.
From my experience most providers aren't all that interested in
providing software updates for systems once they're installed. They
prefer to leave you for 5 years and then come back and sell you the next
solution.
Cheers Don
Chris Hellyar wrote:
I know there are people using Asterisk in NZ for that sort of thing.
8 POTS extensions (lines?) doesn't seem like a lot for 150 extensions
(1:18.75)
That is extensions, pager modems, dial-out points for consultants,
support connections for telemetery systems.. We have a dual channel
primary rate with 40 lines enabled on one site, and a secondary feed to
a second nortel PBX with a single channel and 8 channels. 2 consoles,
and average 180 inbound calls an hour 8:30-5 weekdays. (DDI and pilot)
You are up for a wad going with an OSS solution too really. The handsets are
the killer. At around $250-$300 a handset that's near $40k - assuming you
need handsets.
Yeah, dedicated handsets for an PBX are that sort of money anyway, the
high spec ones we currently use a few of are over $500.
You'd also want either a highly redundant server or multiple redundant boxes
to handle that many handsets, depending of course on how critical the phone
system is to the business. So there's another $5-$10k
You've obviously never seen a Nortel BCM PBX. They are a standard ATX
form factor motherboard running embedded NT or Linux with some special
cards to handle Codec conversion in hardware and ISDN etc. Nothing
flash. It's not until you get up to meridian scale PBX gear from Nortel
it has anything that even looks vaguely redundant. Medium sized PBX's
(250 or less extensions) seem to be going the PC M/B way. Must save a
truck load in development.
I think some money perspective is in order. Two current tech proprietary
IP solutions I've looked at for this have been in the order of
$180-$200k.
No pun intended, you're quite often talking telephone numbers when you
price phone systems. But, they are important to the function of any
business, and as an IT person you can really limit your career if you
get the phones wrong! :-)
Cheers, Me.
--
Don Gould
www.thinkdesignprint.co.nz - www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz -
www.bowenvale.co.nz - www.hearingbooks.co.nz - SkypeMe:
ThinkDesignPrint - Good ideas: www.solarking.co.nz
