dryaquaman

I work for a dealer. I've worked on both the Cisco and the Mitel and my company is one of the largest Nortel - now Avaya - dealers in our state.

My preference is for the Mitel. This is a Mitel forum so.. of course.

The Cisco can do fail over. It works. The Mitel can do fail over. It works.
Call quality will be the same for either system. For ease of use at the phone, I'd prefer the Mitel.

In my opinion, I prefer Mitel for 2 (and more I'm sure) reasons.
1- The resiliency of the Mitel Better. Easier to work on especially for the remote sites.
2- Do a googe search on the "Cisco Tax". Then do a little research of the cost of Smartnet for cisco. It can get very expensive very quickly. Mitel does have it's Software Assurance but it's nowhere near the cost of a Cisco smartnet contract.

If you like seeing the ugly phones on TV shows then you may prefer Cisco. Again, in my opinion, I prefer the Mitel sets.

Dry Aquaman

ITEngineer

Jordan17,

It is always a good idea to look around at what is available. I can not provide an un-biased opinion between Mitel & Cisco because I already have preconceived ideas about the two systems so I will only speak about Mitel.

The Mitel systems have been around for quite a long time and the fact that you can not find much used gear on the secondary market should tell you that people use Mitel gear until it fails or upgraded. I have seen many systems that we have upgraded using old digital stations that have had Mitel systems for well over 20 years. A testament to reliability. A good company with quality people behind it who care about customers. A well established dealer channel provides many places to get service.

I also think that many of the new products we see coming out and the direction of Mitel shows a commitment to customers that other large box companies don't provide. Again these are my opinions only and I am sure there are those who would chose to refute what I have said, the proof is in the company.

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dryaquaman

Let me add a bit to the great comments ITEngineer made.
I think it really comes down to the company that installs, services and maintain your system. The best system in the world (<g> Mitel) isn't any good if it isn't installed and maintained properly. The dealer will need to be competent and trusted. Look for longevity with the product and try to check their reputation.

Ralph

CTMedina

I am new to both the IP telephony and to Mitel. I did not get to choose Mitel, but I have been tasked to be the point person to support and grow our VOIP network. We have many sites and like you do not have large volume between sites. I have worked on Avaya mostly and cisco in a limited fashion as far as VOIP goes. Cisco networking a little more. I do not get paid by Mitel or anyone other than my employer so I have no problem telling you how I really feel. I currently have about 15 sites and many more converting to Mitel in the near future. We did have an Avaya roll out, but that stopped at about 6 sites. We installed MItel at our corp office so that became our new platfom of choice. I come from the networking side of the fence so I love big fat pipes to all my sites if I can afford them or convince my boss we need to afford them. I do not like copper, even though I use a lot as last resort at most of my offices. My strategy going forward is to hang as many IP phones and use our larger circuits to send everything out of our corp location. Might be a littel different for you since your corp office is smaller. I got a Mitel Mxe server with 2 PRIs and a DS3 with SIP trunks so we can handle a lot of calls. Our standard WAN connectivity is MPLS T1, but I am experimenting with IP phones on smaller DSL hardware VPN sites. So far so good.



As far as Mitel as a company, I agree that they are doing some new things. I have for the most part gotten the support I need. Our local partner has been responsive to our needs and has had some challenges, but they are also somewhat new to Mitel. We had an established relationship on our old system (Intertel). I have had some challenges with other dealers (VARS), but that is not directly related to Mitel, just people's egos I guess.



On the topic of hardware, I have gotten mixed reviews. I personally like the Mitel phones. They are reliable, but do break occasionaly. But what does not break. I am pretty sure I have more than 1000 phones accross my enterprise and maybe I replace one every couple of months for some odd reason or another. Most of the time it is user abuse, but I have had the rare brick show up. I have had a couple of people say that the phones feel cheap? That they are too plasticy. Not sure what they are comparing it to? I guess back in the day when phones were made out of metal? I think most phones are made of plastic???



I hate the licenseing model, but it is what it is and it is cheaper than some alternatives. Everyone wants to make more money so everyone is doing it. Looks like things are changing and that is due to that Mitel does listen to thier customers.



That is pretty much my take on the situation. I do not love Mitel, but it has been working and I do not see any compelling reason to change. Yeah, I wish I had 2 more guys on my staff to support it, but that is just my way of doing things. Yeah I wish the support guys from my partner were more knowledgable on my install, but I guess they do have other customers other than me!



Just my $.25 (more than two cents I would say)



Carlos Medina

acejavelin

I had kind of stayed out of this one until now but here is my two cents worth...

I am going to throw a little bit of a curve ball at this one... As everyone knows I am a HUGE Mitel proponent, and have worked for Mitel vendors for over 17 years so I can say with a fair degree of certainty that you would not be unhappy with the 3300 (MCD) product line.

BUT, in your instance, it maybe beneficial to look into the Mitel 5000 (Inter-Tel) series phone systems, they support the Mitel 5xxx series IP phones, network very nicely, and are much easier to configure and maintain than the 3300. I think in basic (non-ACD, no external applications) systems with less than 100 phones per node that are networked this is generally they way to go.

I would also recommend getting rid of your point-to-point T-1's and use IP for networking as the 5000 has 3 networking channels included in the basic Network setup. Then I would get either full or partial PRI's for all locations, they are much more reliable and feature rich then copper lines. Also, the smaller sites might get more benefit out of going with a SIP Trunk provider like Bandwidth.Com. <rant> GET RID OF THE COPPER!!! </rant>

My experience with Cisco is very limited, but from what I have seen setup and configuration times on the Cisco systems are much higher and more involved than when working on Mitel systems (5000 or 3300). This may have more to do with the technician than the product though.

I have worked with both the 3300 and the 5000 for several years, and both are high quality, durable products that will give you many years of quality service.

Then again, I could mention ESI for this one as well (they have jumped lightyears ahead of where they were over the last few years), but for now I will stick with recommending looking at a Mitel 3300 or 5000 solution.

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This is Telephony’s First Law of Equivalent Exchange.