sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information phone system recommendation

Hi, I am not a technician per se, but I am the Communications Administrator for my company and have a pretty in-depth knowledge of our existing system. We are considering moving to a new phone system and was hoping to see if I could get any recommendations for a system that would fit our needs.

I'd be happy to post more info here. Would that be OK, or is that soemthing that you guys frown on?

You're probably going to get as many answers as there are phone systems. The most important, find a good tech.

You should post your specific needs so folks will know what size system you'll need. Also what features you want, number of phones etc.

to the board.

The first thing you might want to ask is why you want a new phone system. Are your present phones doing the job?

A lot of times, the manufacturer will have an upgrade path where you keep your present phones and change out the cabinet to gain extra features. That might be the best, since you would have less of a learning curve for both administration and in using the system.

Please post more, with current system information and watch the (insert your brand name) here responses.

Carl

well, current system is good when it works, but we have several nagging problems that the vendor seems unable or unwilling to fix. I'll not say more in case at some point I disclose what that system is.

OK, here are some specifics:

4 offices:
2 in the US with 200 and 15 people respectively served by 2 PRI's at the main location
1 in The Netherlands with 90 people served by an E1
1 in France with 12 people served by an E1

The majority of phones are analog, but we are considering moving to VoIP

The US office has 8 external stations (IP phones in home offices)

All four communicate using VoIP over our WAN. This includes SW that allows us to see each other's phone status, etc.

We have two small Call Centers in the main US location with a total of 8 agents.

We collect account codes fro long distance calls for billing purposes. in the US ATT does it for us and in Europe the phone system does it, but it's cumbersome.


So you can see it's a pretty extensive system. the current system has been in place for 7 years. I'm not a phone expert, but I have learned an awful lot in the last 7 years. The only two phone systems that come to the top of my head are Nortel and Avaya. But I don't really know much about them.

All depends how much money you are willing to spend. If you really concidering IP I would recomend Mitel ICP or 3300 platform.
Nortel Network and Avaya Definity would be expensive.

Ditto vad60. You should take a hard look at the Mitel 3300. Several flavors, sizes and gateways with fail over and redundancy between locations. Teleworker application for remote IP phones. Usually prices out more attractively that Avaya / Nortel.

sounds like you already have voip...

you should contact a regional rep for your particular system and im sure they can find you a more capable dealer.

i bet your current system can be upgraded for whatever features you want it to do, its just a matter of asking..

what brand is it and what features are you looking for?

You may want to check into the shoretel line as well. Very easy to manage.

It will very easily handle the size of your sites.

Nortel and Avaya both have systems that would fill your needs quite well. I'm a bit biased but the Avaya IP Office platform would probably be a perfect fit for your setup as described.

As telcom1 said, you might just need to find a better dealer/installer to solve your problems with your existing system.

If you explain the problems you have and the current system, we might be able to help solve your issues. It may be a limitation of the system you have, or a limitation of the installer's knowledge.

Well, it's hard to recommend a system that will address your "nagging problems", if we don't know what those problems are. No system is perfect, but problems vary between systems.
Whatever you decide, make sure you get good technical support. Or at least better than what you have now.