I found this forum and am looking for input as we might be pulling the trigger on a Tadiran purchase in the next 2-3 weeks.

Our situation:
A winery with 35 employees, spread out over many buildings including the vineyard which is 2 miles away and connected via wireless. Growth is steady and a store elsewhere in the state might happen in a few years. We are replacing an old and dying Panasonic DBS system. People are generally roving about which is why Flexicall and how Tadiran implemented it seems very applicable.

The quote:
Is for an IPx 500, uCMC w/ 8 ports, Navigator, 2 port fax finder, 8 port analog station card, 16 channel media resource card, door phone, 40- T208 IP phones, and a 4 circuit trunk card.

Questions:
After reading on here I am concerned with their support and the uCMC. Should I price out the WiCMC? I am very fuzzy on the differences. The other thing that is scaring me is having our voicemail and attendant (which will route all general incoming calls) on a laptop hard drive with their in-skin uCMC/Navigator card. Coming from a server background I like redundant drives. Also is a 16 channel media card really enough? If I understand things correctly a chanel is only used for a call going from the IP realm to the PRI? Last thing (for now), I want to tinker with SIP WiFi sets. Have you guys gotten SIP to work pretty easily? The vendor says it is hit or miss.

TIA

I highly recommend Tadiran, been a stable system for us to install. Like all systems you will find ups and downs. I prefer the UCMC that is personal for me, I have installed wicmc and ucmc I have features on the wicmc I have not gotten to work properly(lack of knowledge on my part I am sure) I am just a lot more familiar with the UCMC.

Most of my installs have gone really smooth, There is usually an adjustment period for the new customer. Within this adjustment time, I find myself making small programming changes to accomodate needs that were not thought about during the initial sale.

With the UCMC I have found myself using either Remote desk top or a monitor and keyboard that I have hooked up to the system for admin.

IPX 500 is a great system, you may want to also look at the Ipx office it may fit your needs, also a great system. The 16 MRC should be fine for your size office, i use them in similair installs.

If you have any questions you can visit my website and send me an email I will help as much as I can.

Tadirans most valuable feature is that the system is so flexible in programming, there are hundreds of things to change add and make work with this system. The down side to the system is the same with all those programmable features, it can be a little overwelming.

Solid system, I do not think you would be unhappy with that product.

Reguarding the support, I have had both good and bad experiences with support. More good than bad I would say. Tadirans support staff is somewhat specialized. I have found the bad times to be when with the best of intentions tadiran gets me a support rep that is not busy, but not specialized in the product I am working on. When this happens I ask to be placed back on hold for a specific person that I know, knows the answer to my issue.

The big difference and BIG one that it is is that the WiCMC uses a USB dongle for the key on the software licenses so that the hard drive can be duped or ghosted. The UCMC no such luck as the drive is tied to the board with an eprom so there is no way to backup the drive in a traditional sense. I wouldn't worry so much about the hard drive as most if not all in skin solution (with any sort of larg size) by ALL vendors is based this way.

If you are going all IP and have off site people or traveling salespeople consider getting soft phones and a sentinel for remore access. I also agree on why not the IPXoffice?

Tadiran tech support generally in the past has been very good. Mars has hit the nail on the head about the support staff having people very specialized in certain areas.

Thank you both for the input.

The vendor speced the IPx 500 instead of the office for future growth capability. Is this a false statement on their part?

Have you guys used any SIP WiFi handsets with Tadiran?

Also is my understanding of the role of the media resource card correct?

IPX500 gets bigger. SIPWifi is pretty standard (with any system) and with any wireless you have the wireless issues just like anything else...why does it work fine here but not here. Media Resource card is on EVERY VOIP system that needs to connect to the TDM world...ala telephone lines, PRI etc....

AS an end user, I do not think I would buy the Tadiran if I had to do it all over again.

2 failed UCMC in 2 years, a fax board that has never worked properly in 3 years, several small, but nagging issues (like silent record not working with boss group phones).
Wireless card has to be rebooted at least once a week or phones drop out and/or become very staticy.

Add to the fact failed promises by Tadiran reps themselves (and management has even read about it on this very board and has not addressed ANYTHING) and fairly shoddy support (at best).


From what hear, things over at HQ are not getting any better.

Of course the guys who sell and service them will say buy it, it's great and I can understand that.

As an end user who made the decision to purchase it, I can not recommend it other do the same and I now regret my purchase.

I think the system is a very good system. We sell and service this equipment but we also sell and service a few other brands. I have found that each product has its own place where they should be installed. Certain applications work better with each product but this product has alot of places it works really good in. This system properly installed works very good. I do agree there has been some issues with the uCMC in the past. We do not promote the uCMC we sell the WiCMC instead. It seems to have alot less problems. I do see that you mention Flexicall and in the equipment you do not list a PRI card. If you use that feature it requires you to have a PRI circuit for your phone lines.

I agree DigiPhoneMan. Where I have seen Tadiran systems not perform is when the product is being used in a way that defies reality or logical use. Where there has been problems, esp with the uCMC, these systems are designed for the long haul. The system is so flexible, that some people try to do things that are, as we say, doing it just to say they can.

Quite honestly, in deference to mboy, the wireless works fairly well if it's installed properly and the utility on the board is run to sync the base stations. It's the same system used on multiple other pbx systems by Kirk telecom.

We discontinued selling the uCMC after 2 installs from hell and are looking to replace them with the seamail and the CMC for windows soon. They seem to work well now after tons of updates and quite honestly I could not see that board having enough processor and ram to really run a fax board.

Coral Tech is right in all aspects of his post. I have not installed any Tadiran where I was not able to perform any feature I told the customer it could do. It simply works. I would however like to see Tadiran making CSTA information for 3rd party integration standard or just a licensing deal instead of having to buy a card that kind of can put you out of a price range. When I talk to techs that deal with other phone systems, I tell them about the Tadiran and about what it can do, they are quite impressed. When I started at ExpressJet, they had just installed an NEC SV7000. There was a box that hadn't been installed yet to mimic "flexicall". I started smirking since the Tadiran didn't need an external box to do that. Kind of weird that the Tadiran needs a daughter card for CSTA but not for Flexicall. I just wish the Emerald ICE was as reliable and as flexible.

What utility to sync the base stations? I have a 2 base system in St Louis that has been nothing but hell. The customer is giving up and going to cell phones. Have I missed something.

I've installed quite a few Tadirans both 500's and ICE's. The ICE's are getting a lot more dependable. I agree, I wish they were more flexible. As to the uCMC. I sure don't want to install another one. I'm trying to talk a customer out of buyers remorse on the one I sold him. We're both pulling our hair out trying to set up holiday schedules.

But for all the flexibility of the Tad, the one simple thing he wanted, to have a different ring on one of his DID's, it wouldn't do. I ended up added a SLT to the Boss group on that DID, but it seems like a bandaid.

Reataylor,

I had to setup a butt load of different greetings on a UCMC for a call center. Each one had a different time and different one key dialing. It was a pain but I was able to do it with the UCMC and not the WICMC. The Seamail was not available at the time. The CCR's are the only reason I would install a UCMC.....

Reataylor,

When you direct connect to the SKK card thru one of the utilities, there is a spot in there to have the card measure the line distance to the base stations. I have never read anything that said what this was for but I believe it has to do with latency like we have with IP phones. I can tell you that I have two systems in my offices, one works good (IPX500) and the other not so good (Coral II). Both systems are using the same software and phones but I have done some research and the 2.4 gig phones were discontinued some time ago (per PolyCom’s website) and to my knowledge those running the 1.9 gig phones have not had the problems.

Djn602,

I worked for nine years for a vender who use to sell the DBS and then stated selling the Tadiran products. We installed small systems; Coral SL with four phones up to a school district with nineteen sites connect thru IPNet and have for the most part found Tadiran a good system. I am now an end user but still like the Tadiran products for the most part. I would not install an uCMC for anything, but I would use the WiCMC, but will tell you that you are right about the HD on the WiCMC or the uCMC as they can and will fail. The good thing about that is they are a standard 2.5" HD. I would make sure you have a clone of the drive and a good backup of the WiCMC database to an external device an could have the VM back up and running in a few minutes.

I hope that this helps with what you are doing, but if you have any questions feel free to contact me.

TJ