atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Samsung Telephones & Systems Looking at buying an iDCS 500, is that a good idea

Hey guys, You seem like a great board. I used it when I bought my inter-tel system a few years back. I loved the cost benefit of that system. Yet finding support for it was a nightmare. In our new location, nobody supports it.

I"m looking at buying this iDCS 500, since I need to do Voice Recordings of the calls and the vendor says there no limit to the number of users at a time for recording as long as I have a 4 port VM card.

I am going to need the following configuaration:
1 tda 200
1 PRI card input
1 16 port output digital
1 4 port VM
15 digital phone simple phone
1 digital phone operator phone


We plan on growing to 50 seats in the next year and we could get bigger. Do you guys think this is a good system for the money that does voice recordings?
Also does anyone have any quality used systems of similar configurations.

Thanks,
Erb

Well I hate to break it to you but a 4 port voicemail can only record 4 calls at a time.And that means that no one else could check messages or anything if/when all 4 ports are busy.The record feature is NOT suppose to be or replace a call recording system which is what you really need.If the vendor says it can get it in writing you'll be glad you did when it doesn't work properly.
What is a tda 200 in your configuration?
Other then that the 500 is a good system if you have a good dealer behind it.

[This message has been edited by pvj (edited July 17, 2005).]

If you are going to use the Record feature, I would get the SVMi-8 with a Hard Drive. I $$ allow, get the SVMi-16, and have ability of remote maintenance, plus no worry of expansion problems. It comes with 8 ports and expands to 16 for future growth,

More ports would help but the SVMi is NOT designed to be a call recorder device.Not like you would want in a call center environment and Sasmsung will even tell you that.

For call recording I would like to suggest using Dictaphone equipment, we use it in E-911 centers and it is very reliable. We also developed an E-911 center using the iDCS 500 so we know they will work together. You can check it out at www.focus911.com


[This message has been edited by CMDL_GUY (edited July 18, 2005).]

We use the SVMI 8E and 16E voice mails with the unlimited gateway feature enabled for call recording and set them to email a copy in wave format back to whatever email address the cutomer would like and then have the system automaticaly delete them out of the SVMI. This gives the customer control to save these wav file on there network anyway they like. Its a strong feature a great price we have been able to sell alot of systems because of it. This also works for faxes and sends them in TIF format. Were using that at a real estate company to give agents there own fax number (via DID) that emails them.

But the customer is already saying that he sees a 50 seat call center.An SVMi is NOT going to work in a call center that has more seats than the the SVMi has ports.

Thanks guys, I'm going to look into an external recording device. I've decided to go with the 500.
Erb

Let me know how it turns out.

Did you actually buy the inter-tel system or did you do their " leasing scheme"?

When looking at the product literature from the inter-tel, They are really pushing their leasing options even though it cost more money to lease their system for 5 year then it cost to buy 4 new phone system of another brand.

Most phone system I've seen on are rock solid with 99.999% uptime. Never having to be reset or crashing like with computer or servers. I am talking about you set it and forget it. It runs forever. The only time you would ever need to change anything is something like changing a station's phone nane or settings for new employees.

However Inter-tel product literature makes it seem like you will be spending only 43% of your total cost on the entire phone system and an wopping 57% of your total cost as ongoing service to the system. What a joke!

How long ago did you buy the Inter-tel system? Maybe they had a different way of doing things back then. I would be very interested in how you find the performance of your new Samsung idcs 500 compared to the inter-tec.

If you have any questions about your new system. Please post them here so we can help you. I think you will be very happy with your new system.



[This message has been edited by TonyFalcon (edited August 13, 2005).]