RE: [Asterisk-Users] OT (kinda): Justification for adding Asteriskto the business plan
The fact that Asterisk is soft and you're trying to sell to an IT Company.. Just to clarify, we make up the IT company and we'd be selling it to our customers that may or may not be IT based. The company does run VoIP but does not use Asterisk (using VoIP to add additional local lines in different area codes). What I'm trying to accomplish is a convo/thread of why IT consultancies should take on Asterisk in their normal support (or a value-add service). When I look at VoIP, I see nothing different between setting up and configuring perl scripts for AGI/* Manager interfaces (system admin scripting) to plugging the BRI into a Digium card from the old T1 router. Granted there are some differences in command configurations and might have to label a wire or two Voice instead of Data but nothing earth shattering. As for sales, it would be just adding new listings under Telephones in the yellow pages and adding a few words to brochures/web pages. -Don ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] OT (kinda): Justification for adding Asteriskto the business plan
Greetings, I would encourage you to consider this item VERY carefully as customers could get very irritated with Asterisk very quickly. For some context, we just finished a 3 month rollout of Asterisk across 40 handsets and three remote locations. While it works now, it was by far the worst project I've been a part of. Even with excellent technical support (The Voip Connection) there simply are issues in the Asterisk world that customers are not ready for. The old lock-in model of the telecom world was nasty and monopolistic and expensive, but by jove it just worked. The PSTN is required by law to have 5 9's worth of uptime. What communications technology can you point to that has that level of uptime? If you do not have developers on staff that have; years of experience in the telecom world, years of experience with Linux, years of networking experience and months of SIP phone experience at their disposal than I would encourage you to not offer this service to your customers. Because as you've seen from this list ANYTHING and EVERYTHING can, and does, go wrong with this technology. Now that being said, in 5 years, everyone will be doing this, but that is 5 years from now. If I had been given any other choice, and I wasn't, I would have chucked Asterisk and paid 3x the price for a Semens/Nortel IP switch in a heartbeat. It would have saved me hours of endless hassles, dozens of lost important phone calls, hours of downtime and weeks of nearly rapid frustration from my users. Yes, it was that bad. However, now that its here, and relatively stable, it works like no other telecom technology I've seen or worked near (I'm not that well versed on telecom though). Just my $0.02. RandyW /dev/null wrote: The fact that Asterisk is soft and you're trying to sell to an IT Company.. Just to clarify, we make up the IT company and we'd be selling it to our customers that may or may not be IT based. The company does run VoIP but does not use Asterisk (using VoIP to add additional local lines in different area codes). What I'm trying to accomplish is a convo/thread of why IT consultancies should take on Asterisk in their normal support (or a value-add service). When I look at VoIP, I see nothing different between setting up and configuring perl scripts for AGI/* Manager interfaces (system admin scripting) to plugging the BRI into a Digium card from the old T1 router. Granted there are some differences in command configurations and might have to label a wire or two Voice instead of Data but nothing earth shattering. As for sales, it would be just adding new listings under Telephones in the yellow pages and adding a few words to brochures/web pages. -Don ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] OT (kinda): Justification for adding Asteriskto the business plan
It's all about the testing before rollout. The problem with the run of the mill IT guy (especially ones involved in web sites) they tend to think that testing something means you try a few calls and if it works it's all fine. Testing isn;t beating into them in the same way it is in the telecom guys. There are often unforeseen implications of changing the smallest little knob on the system. Unless you are willing to really think about how to make the box fail and try the permutations and combinations the end user is always going to be unhappy. At the end of the day for some incremental income you don;t want to take an otherwise happy customer and turn him into a nightmare in the search to add a little VOIP. -bill On 15-Jul-05, at 8:15 AM, /dev/null wrote: The fact that Asterisk is soft and you're trying to sell to an IT Company.. Just to clarify, we make up the IT company and we'd be selling it to our customers that may or may not be IT based. The company does run VoIP but does not use Asterisk (using VoIP to add additional local lines in different area codes). What I'm trying to accomplish is a convo/thread of why IT consultancies should take on Asterisk in their normal support (or a value-add service). When I look at VoIP, I see nothing different between setting up and configuring perl scripts for AGI/* Manager interfaces (system admin scripting) to plugging the BRI into a Digium card from the old T1 router. Granted there are some differences in command configurations and might have to label a wire or two Voice instead of Data but nothing earth shattering. As for sales, it would be just adding new listings under Telephones in the yellow pages and adding a few words to brochures/web pages. -Don ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
