sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Partner configuration guide

I have project coming up that I will need to install some sort of small office system to support around (guessing at this point) 20 people. They will also need voice mail. I have looked through a lot of the R5 manuals (I have 4 of those systems out there) but I haven't ever ran across anything that says, "OK 20 people you need x number of trunk lines".

How would you set this up?
How many trunk lines (Centrex lines) would this need to have?
Is the partner to small of a system to handle this amount of extensions?

Thanks for you time and help on this.

Hey Mike,

For 20 users, I think the Partner ACS will be fine. I'm not sure what the correct way is to calculate the required number of POTs lines, but I think I've seen estimates like 1 line for every 3 people.

Doesn't this depend on the expected usage patterns. Which are different from industry to industry, and also the individual's job requirements.
I've also found that regardless of the technical requirements the boss/ceo/executives ALWAYS wnat to have a line available.

Yes, it depends on their expected usage. What kind of business is it? Generally I find 4 or 5 lines are sufficient but again that depends on what they do.

-Hal

This apparently is going to be for a administrative office to move into. In talking with someone a minute ago, it looks like they are planning on moving around 6 people in there when and if they decide to go into this old building. They plan to grow by about the same amount of people within the next couple of years.

This being said I think they can be expected to be on the phones a lot, even more so than most places of busniess.


I would like to have room to grow with them if it is at all possible with the Partner.


Thanks for your replies everyone.

Do they have anything now? Almost always the customer will have an idea how many lines they will want. "Administrative office" tells me nothing. What kind of business? They all say they will be on the phones a lot.

-Hal

I would quote a DSX80 but Partner will handle the growth just fine .

In a situation like this I like to use telco VM as a indicator of line usage , if their getting calls going to VM during business hours it means you need to add some lines

This will be a grants compliance office. Their job is to basically make sure we get our grants in so they are all day long on the phone. Remember this is a hospital.

The building their are considering moving into is a old building. Their may be a little bit of 1A2 Key stuff in their but i am going to tear out everything and wire it back with 4 pairs.

Not a lot of effort went into the cabling before. 25 pairs just hanging out of the walls. The closet (if you can call it that) is really a closet like in your house. Not much to it.

Thanks again for the help.

Hey Mike,
The Partner is a good little system and easy to grow.
We don't normally recommend it to anyone thinking they will grow beyond 33 extensions using POTS lines.
Has far as how many lines. In an administrative environment with 20 extensions I would probably recommend 8 to 10 lines. Which is knocking at the door for a T-1. Just a thought.
Have you thought about maybe using an IPO with a PRI and DID's? Then it would be easier to link to your Definity if ever needed.

Thanks for your reply Mike. I know in the past the IPO had it's issue's but it may be better now. I will give it a look. As for the PRI, that may be a really good option. If i do not have to turn on DCS, which is very expensive for the amount of ports I have licensed.

Connecting them back to my PBX would give them 5 digit dialing back to the complex which would be really nice for them. I will look into this too.

Thanks again Mike.