sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Toshiba Telephones & Systems CIX strengths & weaknesses - Info needed

I am looking at the NEC Aspire and the Toshiba CIX.

I am looking to find out what some of the main strengths and weaknesses of the CIX are. For instance the NEC can conference up to 32 parties and I think the CIX is only 8 parties. The NEC dealer has also told me that Toshiba cannot light a park key or an intercom/hotline key across a VoIP network? Toshiba seems to be stronger in some other areas though.

Can anyone compare and/or contrast these 2 systems or provide insight into the Toshiba strengths & weakneses on the CIX? I would much appreciate it.

Are these features you need? How often would you need to do a 32 party conference, do you do lots of conferences? If I were selling NEC I would list a couple features that were something less in Toshiba.

Both of the systems have most of the same stuff and everyone is working on newer, fancier software. This is a deal of fairly equal equipment. What do the cabinets cost, what do the phones cost, which phones look nicer, what is the warranty, do they modem in remote changes and what does that cost? There is a start.

Note: Personal opinion, I like the Toshiba a lot.

32 may be excessive, but I can see more than 8 on rare occasions or more importantly, multiple simultaneous conferences of 4-6 people.

We have multiple sites with a fair amount of communication between so I like the thought of being able to see who is on the phone at a remote site w/ a light on a hotline key - can the Toshiba show that?

our company sells only NEC and Toshiba systems. i've never heard any of the Toshiba techs wanting to switch to NEC service - but I can only say that for our company =)

since bunnie covered the issue of the parallel features, I'll add that I like the look of the NEC phones. However, the Toshiba phones feel/look sturdier.

I have a voip phone sitting beside me here, and it shows me who is on the phone, and even what lines are in use.

I am about ready to break down and put a new release 4 CPU in my system. I have never been happy with the conference I get on my CIX (upconverted from a CTX).

If conference is that important and it seems it is, I would do one of two things, put money aside for a real third party conference bridge or see a working demonstration of a dozen people in a conference.

I am only working from the old adage "If it seems to be too good to be true..." Unlike meisgq, I don't like the look of the NEC phones at all and putting that silver stuff on the 3000 series of phones certainly makes them look cheap.

I have found the Toshiba phones to be exceptionally sturdy and will give a two year warranty on used ones because they don't come back to bite me.

Going back to what I said before, what do the instruments cost, that is going to be a significant chunk of change. NEVER buy a phone without a display, these are easily going to be in use twenty years from now.

Does the voicemail do unified messaging, not so applicable if you are all Macintosh.

Either one of them will do networking, how many nodes do you need, do you have enough. Do you have sites that can be economical with VOIP phones only?

Take the stupid lists of redundant features and see what features you really need. Get a General Description of the NEC and the CIX and get an understanding on what you think the redundant feature list says. This is going to be a significant sale, let the sales person sit down with you and make it clear to you.

Five year warranty's are available from the manufacturer or some third party? A lot of people got screwed when they bought third party warranty's on Samsung phones and the third party went broke.

If you are going to lease it, shop the total dollar amount among a bunch of local leasing agents. Sales people have been known to get a 10% spiff from the leasing agent because the customer was very careful on the total price and didn't think about the lease "factor" as they call it.

Never do a "fair market value" lease, they are screwing you. A 10% buyout is cool to the tax people and a standard deal, not like the $1 buyout.

Do a couple weeks of homework and come back with questions. Then once you have an idea of what you are going to buy, make sure you hear the conference call.

After you pretty much pick the system, I'll tell you how to find out if the dealer is for you. Anyone can take care of small customers, but what about your size.

If you are looking for a good conference and network BLF, you may want to look at the Tadiran. It can be installed with many 2 15 party conference cards and you can link the conference bridges together by a BRI card in the system or E&M trunks. I have a customer that uses this for a 70 plus conference bridge. With the new Flexattendant the operator can see when people are on the phone from different sites thru a network connection. There are limitations though. The average user without the Flexattendant software will not be able to see when others are on the phone from the other locations.

I had to looked it up, but Toshiba does support network DSS and BLF (Busy Lamp Field) across a QSIG network (linking 2 or more switches together). It takes a bit more setup, but so does QSIG.

It definately works with a VOIP phone connected to a switch.

It sure sounds like you are trying to do your homework.
In a system of this size, the quality of service from your vendor is going to be vital.
If the systems are, as I believe them to be, similar in most capabilities, check out the vendors. Ask for references of accounts of a size similar to yours. Call them up and ask them how satisfied they are with the service they recieve.
Especially when you start getting involved in multiple sites, the quality of your vendor is going to be the key.
One last note to consider:
Toshiba has historically been very good about making their equipment backwards compatible. You can take a DKT2020 from an early Toshiba digital system and it will work just fine on your CIX. Some cards will work as well. I suspect that they will continue to follow this practice. If they do, in ten years when you want to go with a completely new and updated system, it is highly likely that you will be able to do so whithout buying all new telephones if you go with Toshiba. That is not the case with NEC where most of their phones are specific to one system and one system only.

You are right, Paul, about the phones. That's one of the most expensive parts to a new system quote. But if you buy your phones today, they will still be good on a newer system, say, in 10-15 years.