Who has the Top Rated IP PBX? - Page 2 - PBX Info :: Your Free PBX, PABX and Telephone Information Resource

***sillejo*** · 09-03-2006, 08:30 PM

WOW Marty...live in the now

I think it was 1999 when they didn't support faxing or modems.
ATA - individual box for analog devices (support protocols H.323, MGCP. SCCP)
VG248 - 48 port analog station gateway with Amphenol ends to 66 blocks. Also has 2 async ports for SMDI replication and stacking (protocols MGCP and SCCP)
VG224 - IOS based analog gateway with 24 ports through an amphenol end (H.323, MGCP, SCCP)

They do have an R&D arm ya know, it's not like they build something in 1998 and never update it. The VG248 and ATA were purchased but the VG224 was home grown.

If you look at the Mericom report again you will see that in the scoring Avaya, Mitel and Cisco were all a wash in Features. Features really are not a distinguishing factor any longer, neither is interoperability. I doubt there are too many systems where they have not integrated.

Naturally I live in the Cisco world but really, I would never assume Avaya hasn't overcome the old knocks on it, like PoE, the need for a Cajun, lack of Voice Vlan support. Obviousy they must have figured these things out in the last 9 years.

Ok so one other thing - The Feds PBX1 cert is a very complex deal. It requires more than just security (features, interoperability, standards support) So check it out. I think Cisco then Sphere got certified and they are the only IP Tel ones I have heard of.

http://jitc.fhu.disa.mil/tssi/apl.html

phull_iqbal · 09-03-2006, 11:17 PM

In my opnoin Avaya may be good in the UK and other Europe countries. but in middle east it is not a stable products
THanks

Filou · 09-04-2006, 04:30 AM

We recently asked for tenders for a new IP telephony system (~3000 phones, with international branch offices managed and controled centrally). Currently we have a Nortel LAN and a Siemens PBX.
Nortel won, but I can say honestly that this had nothing to do with them already providing the LAN. They won mainly because of a nice price, but they were better technically than Cisco anyway in every aspect. Avaya found no partner to tender, which is sad because I think they would have ranked as good or better as Nortel on the technical part, although maybe a bit lower in features.

The problem with Cisco was: higher price (they own the market, they don't even need to make exceptionnal offers), poor flexibility in integrating with the LAN and many many little technical glitches that may not mean the end of the world when you look at them one by one, but that, when put together, draw a bad image of the whole solution. Siemens was completly unworthy of interest (Hipath 8000 based, too many missing features).

***MSYoung*** · 09-04-2006, 05:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillejo

WOW Marty...live in the now

I think it was 1999 when they didn't support faxing or modems.

As I said, my opinion is not unbiased. When I worked for an Avaya Business Partner (left that job about a year ago) we always had a problem integrating a Cisco and an Avaya phone system together.

DCS is an Avaya only product and Cisco probably has its' own version, getting four digit dial to work between the systems (or worse yet, number portability) was a nightmare. And it wasn't due to a lack of knowledge on our part because we had a Cisco person on our team with a whole pocket full of Cisco CCxx certificates and he was talking to his counterpart all the time.

The problems usually revolved around terminology and options. The Cisco side (data folks) and the Avaya side (telecom folks) had different ideas about how phones, and phone calls, should work. Even a simple task of connecting a T1 between the systems took days. They were never easy.

CharlesP · 09-16-2006, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillejo

Shortel - cost, true IP (but you have to add a whole other infrastructure to support the phones)

Nemertes Rates SHORETL #1 for the 2rd year in a row, agianst Avaya, Cisco, and Nortel.... shoretel.com/resources/industry_research/downloads/nemertes_summary.pdf
And with Shoretel, you do not have to add "A Whole other infrastructure to support the phones." All the systems I've installed have been on existing networks.

Charles

***sillejo*** · 09-17-2006, 09:20 PM

Charles P ? Is that for Peckham? Did you work out of Minneapolis for a while?

Back to the conversation.....
There is a misconception on the part of most people that somehow having a CCIE, CCNP, CCNA or anything CC qualifies yout o kno anything about the IP Tel products. It does not. CallManager Unity and IPCC do not run IOS and do not use routing protocols, so it floors me when anyone compares knowledge of IP Telephony with Cisco Certs. The only one that applies is the CCVP and you never find anyone with one of those.

Back to "the simple T1" Your "Cisco Guy" is clueless if he couldn't get a T-1 up. More than likely he was a data guy and configured the router as such or tried doing too much before getting the connection up.

How in the world is four digit dialing an issue?? Seriously, would the product really really be able to compete in the slightest if it couldn't do 4 digit dialing between systems? honestly....

Charles, I'd be interested to hear more. Shortel is obviously worrying to the local Cisco office, they talk about how to beat them a lot. I watched a presentation on it, but it sounded like you needed to buy Shortel infrastrucure to plug the phones into which sat between the phones and the data infrastructure. Thus my notes. If there is a way to use existing infrastrucutre, I'd like to know. Thanks

CharlesP · 09-18-2006, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillejo

Charles P ? Is that for Peckham? Did you work out of Minneapolis for a while?

Charles, I'd be interested to hear more. Shortel is obviously worrying to the local Cisco office, they talk about how to beat them a lot. I watched a presentation on it, but it sounded like you needed to buy Shortel infrastrucure to plug the phones into which sat between the phones and the data infrastructure. Thus my notes. If there is a way to use existing infrastrucutre, I'd like to know. Thanks

Nope, not Charles Peckham, and I live in Florida

Shoretel is so simple, it's not even funny. You need a server for VM (The only windows component). You need a T1 interface box (Shoregear T1), a Control box (like a Shoregear 60/12) that plugs into the network, and preferably a PoE switch.

I think the common misconception is that you need to plug the phones into the Shoregear 60/12 (that's what I thought before I did my first install), but in reality, the shoregear 60/12 has a single ethernet port that gets plugged into the lan. Thats it.

I have secretaries doing Add/Moves/Changes. The company I work for is a Cisco PLatinum partner, and we used to offer Call MAnager Express (Although I never worked with it) and we dropped it because it was too much hassle, especially when compared to a Shoretel install.

Shoretel is so simple, they have a 'Demo in a box' that most dealers own. You can roll it into the conference room, fire it up, and make internal calls during your demo.

You may want to investigate it further

***sillejo*** · 09-19-2006, 08:31 AM

Exactly, I thought you needed to plug the phones into the 60/12.

So can the phones stick themselves into a voice or special VLAN on their own or do you trunk to the phone from the switchport? What phones usually get deployed? Do they make their own?

thanks, CallManager Express was awful the first few times we put it out. Router Jocks rejoice, it's all IOS based with a gui for MAC's.

***Bygcland*** · 10-04-2006, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Filou

We recently asked for tenders for a new IP telephony system (~3000 phones, with international branch offices managed and controled centrally). Currently we have a Nortel LAN and a Siemens PBX.
Nortel won, but I can say honestly that this had nothing to do with them already providing the LAN. They won mainly because of a nice price, but they were better technically than Cisco anyway in every aspect. Avaya found no partner to tender, which is sad because I think they would have ranked as good or better as Nortel on the technical part, although maybe a bit lower in features.

The problem with Cisco was: higher price (they own the market, they don't even need to make exceptionnal offers), poor flexibility in integrating with the LAN and many many little technical glitches that may not mean the end of the world when you look at them one by one, but that, when put together, draw a bad image of the whole solution. Siemens was completly unworthy of interest (Hipath 8000 based, too many missing features).

I could have done the 3000 phones for less with the Tadiran. Tadiran seems to be passed up mostly becuase they are not heard of. They are doing a lot more marketing now than ever. I would suggest anyone that has time to read go to their website. www.tadiranamerica.com

Some really cool information on there for any application you want.

John Dunne · 10-28-2006, 06:00 PM

Great discussion. Has anyone run into finger pointing between the VoIP vendor and the LAN vendor, if they are different (ie CISCO LAN and Avaya IP phones)?

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