[asterisk-biz] case study on switching to Asterisk

Tue Mar 20 17:34:22 MST 2007

The bottom line is that you will save money or at the very least, over 
the course of a year or two, break even.  Considering some proposals I 
did on NEC IPK systems several years ago, an eight port conference 
bridge card was $5,000, another $5,000 for an eight port VoIP card MGCP, 
$3,000 for a four port voicemail card, add some other feature and you 
get the point.  Also, support contracts were something to the tune of $4 
per port per month, that includes all ports (concurrent voicemail access 
+ phones + PSTN + conference bridges).  So lets say that "whatever" 
company has 4 FXO, 16 FXS, and 4 voicemail, that is a total of 24 ports 
X $4 = $96/mo X 12mo = $1,152 and that only included very specific limits.

This is all free in Asterisk.  You could purchase a Switchvox (or some 
other turnkey) system pretty cheaply, have all of those costly add-on 
features included, they offer support via SSH and over the phone, and 
with IP, MACs are a breeze.  A low level A+ tech can do it, unlike a 
traditional system where a telephone guy has to come out with a butt 
set, toner, and punch down tool.  Most proprietary systems are not 
exactly easy to program even in a "Turnkey" solution.

You have many variables to look at but I think that your paper will be a 
very interesting look into a paradigm shift. 

Thanks,
Steve

Byron Pile wrote:
> I was going to assume that yes, there are Linux people on staff and 
> that they could be taken away to set up and support asterisk. But 
> because I was comparing it to a turnkey solution that most likely is 
> including service as part of the contract, comparing it to a similar 
> contract based asterisk setup makes more sense. However, I guess when 
> starting this I was hoping to eliminate "license" fees from the open 
> source solution, but if I'm using a small company, I think its more 
> realistic to assume they don't have a support department ready to 
> devote man hours to an asterisk system when they were using a turnkey 
> solution before.
>
> Thanks for clarifying the handsets, I was considering using SIP phones 
> in the case study, but thought it might be possible to "reuse" some 
> existing equipment. This is also a technology upgrade in this case.
>
> I was going to assume that the workers were just as productive as 
> before, but the ROI would come mostly from reduction in operating 
> costs (hopefully). If they don't have any "linux people" on staff, 
> this makes it harder to include some of the open source benefits like, 
> fixing bugs, adding features and the other flexibility that Asterisk 
> would provide over using the Norstar.
>
> Thanks for the response Steve, I have more research to do obviously!
>
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Subject: RE: [asterisk-biz] case study on switching to Asterisk
>     Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:59:03 -0500
>     From: stotaro at asteriskhelpdesk.com
>     To: asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
>
>     For several varying quotes, one could go to www.buyerzone.com
>     <http://www.buyerzone.com/> and put in exactly what you
>     specified.  You will get several vendors proposing different
>     systems, prices, and most importantly, service contracts.  It does
>     cost each vendor about $25 dollars to buy your “lead” so be aware
>     that you are costing them money by doing this.  Whether or not
>     that is ethical, is your decision.  I am just pointing out that
>     “one could do it”.  Make sure to include that you need a
>     conference bridge that can handle unlimited callers, also
>     unlimited voicemail ports, support SIP, and also consider
>     scaling.  That should freak them out.
>
>      
>
>     Does “whatever” company have people on staff that know Linux and
>     have time to learn and support Asterisk?  What is the cost of
>     taking them from what they usually would be doing to work on the
>     Asterisk system?
>
>      
>
>     I would suggest going with SIP phones and a four port FXO board. 
>     You could run both systems side by side until you are ready to cut
>     over and then just switch your four POTs lines. 
>
>      
>
>     Most proprietary systems use digital sets so you cannot use a
>     mutiport FXS board.  I have used proprietary handset gateways such
>     as Citel and my person experience was very very poor. 
>
>      
>
>     How much ROI is going to depend on increased worker productivity
>     which is fairly hard to figure out and also ongoing average costs
>     of MACs (cost of Moves Adds Changes) as well as support contracts. 
>
>      
>
>     Thanks,
>     Steve Totaro
>     http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com
>     KB3OPB
>      
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     *From:* asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
>     [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] *On Behalf Of
>     *Byron Pile
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, March 20, 2007 5:28 PM
>     *To:* asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
>     *Subject:* [asterisk-biz] case study on switching to Asterisk
>
>      
>
>     I thought the biz list was most appropriate for this. Hope I'm not
>     wrong!
>
>     I'm trying to write a term paper on adopting an open source
>     solution over a commercial solution and comparing the cost.
>     Specifically if a legacy system is in use already,  when will the
>     initial investment of hardware for an asterisk based system  pay
>     off against the licensing fees of a proprietary system. After
>     reading a good chunk of the free Asterisk book "Asterisk:The
>     Future of Telephony" I think that Asterisk is an excellent topic
>     for the paper. 
>
>     I'm new to telephony stuff so bear with me if my questions are a
>     bit dumb, I've tried to do quite a bit of research and reading
>     before posting to the mail lists.  So my idea was to use the fake
>     company "whatever" and they have 15 telephones and are currently
>     using a  Norstar ICS with 4 incoming lines and 15 internal lines
>     and I would like to switch this over to an asterisk based system.
>
>     The reason for choosing the Norstar as this is a turnkey solution
>     provided by a large local telecom so I will be able to get some
>     pricing information for them fairly easily and I think it does
>     what a 15 telephone small office might need...I'm open to a better
>     suggestion if the Norstar is a poor choice.
>
>     My quick questions are...is it possible that the handsets being
>     used with a Norstar could be converted and used with the Asterisk
>     system? (a bit of asset recovery)
>
>     A system consisting of a suitable linux server running Asterisk
>     and a Digium TDM2441B PCI Card 16FXS / 4FXO  would be a suitable
>     replacement and could deliver the same performance/functions as
>     the Norstar system?
>
>     I'm going to try and be as thorough as possible in assessing the
>     costs in switching to this system. The most obvious being some new
>     hardware, but also, downtime, training, support costs, contract
>     penalties (if there are any) etc....But this is a term paper and a
>     highly hypothetical situation. And I know my questions are a bit
>     general, but the paper will probably be kept quite general. I hope
>     I can learn more about this cool app!
>
>     Thanks!
>
>      
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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