sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information 4 Quotes for a new system, would like opinions on these systems

We have recieved 4 quotes for a new phone system. The system is going in a medium sized manufacturing and office facility. We will be using about 50 regular phones, 8 VOIP phones for outside salespeople and 9 internal wireles phones. They quotes we have recieved are for:

A Tadirand Coral system
An Intertel Axxess system
A NEC Aspire system
A Samsung iDCS system

Would appreciate any comments on relative warranty, quality or feature sets
Thanks!

We sell both Tadiran and the Aspire. The Tadiran is a higher end product although the Aspire is quite capable. The Tadiran is designed to be in for a long time and be upgraded. The Aspire, if it follows the previous systems, usually has a 7-10 year obsolescence factor. Besides this the other biggest advantage the Tadiran has over all these system is VOIP. You do not have to be on a VPN in order is use the VOIP in the system. With the Coral Sentinel it allows for remote access/firewall...BTW this is huge don't underestimate this. The UGW (ip card) in the Coral can support 240 endpoints..these can be FXO(POTS lines even in another city or home)/FSX (provides analog dialtone for analog devices) networking other systems, phones or softphones. Besides this I am assuming they are quoting an IPX500...with PRI you can use flexicall, ties your salespeople extensions to their cell phones..very cool. 2 TRUE 14 party conference bridges...this is also huge. Analog ports that are not screwed with so you can actually get 56k modems to work correctly if you have modems on the system and also provides a true 48/90 ring current. An in skin voicemail that has unified messenging AND fax server capabilities (ucmc). Good luck, I know it can be tough call but in your size AND wanting VOIP I would suggest the Tadiran over the Aspire for your application.

Good luck!

You are correct they quoted the Tadiran IPX500
Thanks that is great info!

Hi Alex:

I'm a little weak on the other systems, but I can tell you that the Inter-Tel Axxess is a very strong work horse and will do everything you spec'd and much more.

BTW,

You might consider getting a quote on the AltiGen system. They are better suited when it comes to voip extensions ie more experienced. Would't hurt to get one more quote and take a look at the features.

if you what to look at features look at ESI, very strong in VOIP remote phones (acd, blf/dss, ect.)all the stuff you get with a digital phone. and it is EASY TO USE. just my 2 cents

Ask your inter-tel dealer for a quote on the itner-tel 5000. It is a new IP based switch. Will do everything that you want and more. The axxess is very good also.

If making true conference calls is important drop the Samsung. Samsung is still struggling with VOIP but for small key sales it is a winner. For Voip, I would not touch it at this date.

Intertel is powerful but has some oddities. I put in Viking call monitor boxes because as expensive as the Access is, it could not monitor calls, nor the Norstar equipment while the Samsung could.

I have no experience with Tadiran or Nec.

One very smart way to shop for systems in to look in the phone book and see how many local dealers there are. If there is one dealer in a 50 mile radius, you are totally SOL if the dealer goes under or you are not happy with each other.

Will they be modeming in to do software changes for phones or charging for a service call to come out. What do they charge to modem into a system and make changes?

Another thing is to call all the dealers without identifying yourself, and ask what their labor rate is and how fast they can respond to a problem. Most systems are so very reliable that you are not going to have a dead system situation but if you have to schedule two or three weeks ahead for fixing a jack, do you want to buy from them?

Look up their credit rating in D&B. A dealer doesn't have to be a financial wizard, but if they have a half dozen leins on them...

See what the phones cost on the proposal and call up and see what they cost one by each today.

Samsung will sell you a 5 year warranty and you better buy it on the voicemail, but its not a big deal on the rest of the stuff. With anyone, buy a 5 year warranty on the voicemail, too many of them die prematurely.

Do you want to put in all VOIP phones and be done with regular key system phones?

Are they trying to sell you a few phones with lots of buttons for a few executives and cheaper phones for everyone else? Show them the door. The phone is a working tool you should have for a minimum of 10 years, probably more, and having everyone use phones with at least 24 buttons means that all the convenience features are a one touch not some code to remember. Look at how little you spend each year proportionally for better phones that are more useful.

Ask your accountant to review any lease they want to give you. A Fair Market Value lease is the easiest way to get shafted at the end of the lease. See if the lease has a 120 day notice of termination, if so stay away from that lease firm.
Ask the sales rep if they are getting any "points" on the lease and call another couple leasing companies to see what the monthly payment would be for the same amount of money for the same term.

Does this have built in battery backup charging? Trying to keep a system up with UPSs for any length of time is nonsense, the system should charge batteries and run off those batteries, not losing three fourths of the battery power converting DC to AC to be converted back to DC to run the phones.

Its not just the brand, its the software that will run your applications, the service people, the phone itself, lease, lots to check on.

At this point I would propose a Toshiba for most applications that are over a dozen or so phones. Much of that is because I have seen the durability of the equipment and the ability to do most anything in software.

If you really want to have the best system for your particular needs, you haven't even started to shop yet, but you can now.

Point noted on the samsung...
Great info on the dealers and the questions to ask about service.
I don't have to worry about lease deals, as hard as they tried to sell them I insisted on a cash price. So far nobody has tried to stuff us with a few fancy exec phones, I wouldn't let that happen
Maybe I'll have to contact a Toshiba dealer nobody proposed them.
I did notice a few of the systems had batteries built in.
I will admit to a certain anti-toshiba bias. As in so many places now the IT guy (me) is the phone guy, we used to use Toshiba laptops because they were high quality but they went WAY down hill, maybe it's not the same on the phone end.

I would differ with this statement. There are phones now with fewer keys and more feature functionality through "soft keys" on the display. Besides, do you know how many features the average user uses out of the hundreds of features available on a modern PBX? It's 3. Make sure you check into it...it makes zero sense to stick a 24 button phone on a pole in the shipping dept.