Good afternoon everyone!
I have just recently signed up due to a general lack of knowledge of the system we have at our motel, and the general hard-sell tactics that have led me to distrust many of the servicers and installers local to me, so I am hoping that perhaps I can get some perspective and advice.
Our system is a Mitel SX-200 MX (not sure of how to tell specific revision or generation) with 2 ASU-II switches and what looks like a total of 3 ONS-class cards (#50005731). The last time anyone did any kind of preventive maintenance on it was about 3...... management companies ago, and the new owner actually wants to take care of things so I’ve been tasked with getting the most out of it. Recently we had a major storm that knocked out our ability to call out, and the local telco guy says we have a trunk card that needs to be replaced. I am familiar with IP PBX platforms from Cisco, but this is a little older than my head can wrap around, and that has inspired me to reach out to the pros.
TL;DR - Old PBX, probably a bad trunk card, but 4 main questions:
- How does a trunk card fail that lets incoming calls route correctly, but not allow outgoing calls?
- What is currently the best software to connect to the PBX. I have gotten mixed messages on that, or possibly have a bad maintenance port. I have tried a straight through RS232, and a Null-Modem cable. Cannot get a connection, or any sign it is working. Using the ICP, the revoked certificates won't let me in with anything but internet explorer, and there it won't detect my Java install to do anything. I am a BSD guy if there is a smart solution for that.
- If it really is as simple as a bad trunk card, what is the easiest way to identify which card it is (once I can get logged into the controller) and can it be replaced with an identical part and require no reconfiguration?
- I've read this controller can use IP trunks, are there any special considerations to know about when arranging a SIP provider that might not be a big deal with current systems? We REALLY want to distance ourselves from the POTS telco here.
Sorry for bombarding you with so many things at once, but this thing has been stumping me for a couple weeks now, and my lack of knowledge has driven me up a wall where everyone just tries to sell us a new system for $5k-$17.6k. I appreciate any words of wisdom that can be imparted. Thanks in advance and have a great day!
