atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Systems For Beginners

Hello all,

I have been looking around the web as well as eBay at the many different types and brands of phone systems. If I were to buy myself a phone system (I'm looking for recommendations), here is what I would need:

- 1 to 3 CO line capability

- at least 4 extension capability

- Caller ID capability

- easy programming (I don't mean plug and play, just looking for something simple to start out with)

- standard telephone capable

- customizable line selection/feature buttons

- customizable ring tones (proprietary phones of course)

- handsfree intercom (ex: announcing a call through a phone's speaker)

- music on hold (with headphone jack input)

- programmable extension numbers (preferably up to 4 digits, such as x8775)

- attendant/operator extension that can be programmed as intercom ext. 0 (all incoming calls ring here first, then are transferred to the desired party)

- automatic line selection

- paging capability with tone before announcement (and headphone jack input)

- active line privacy (so no-one picks up when the line is in use)

- intercom caller ID (this is not needed, and if the system uses a different ringtone for intercom calls this is not necessary)

- phones MUST use RJ11 cords (I can't remove the existing RJ11 jacks in place), 4 pair RJ11 cords are OK

I know there are a lot of systems out there, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what brand/type of system I would like to work with. If anyone has any recommendation of what kind of system I should look into or consider, any input would be appreciated. :thumb:

Thank you,
telecom guy10

X16 XBlue will fit most, but not all, of your requirements. The big plus is you can use your existing wiring for the most part.

Thanks! Unfortunately, ( since I'm going to buy my equipment from eBay) the prices for even a single XBlue telephone set run way above what I'm able to spend. I have been looking at systems from Avaya (thanks Ed) as well as Nortel Meridian, Comdial Impact and Executech, AT&T/Lucent Merlin and Spirit systems, Panasonic Ease-A-Phone systems, Toshiba Strata systems, and a few others here and there, as there are an abundance of these systems at low prices on eBay. Do you know of any other systems that you can recommend I take a look at?

Watch out what you buy from places like eBay much of the stuff is sold there cheap for a reason. Save your pennys and try something like this

Thanks for the link! I will keep that one in mind it looks like a pretty good deal.

If you need caller ID ask for the price to upgrade to a CI card instead of LS/DS card.

Good point. Thanks!

The Avaya Partner ACS meets most of the requirements.

I like the Avaya systems- but what requirements doesn't the average Partner meet? Personally I would like to get a Nortel, Comdial, Panasonic or Avaya/AT&T/Lucent system because information on them is so widely accessible. Thanks for your reply!

@telecom guy10 - Partner doesn't support programmable numbering