[Asterisk-Users] I give up!!

[WipeOut]

costas wrote:

>This is a traumatic story. Maybe you can help the rest of us who are making business decisions using *.
>
>Will you or client be looking at any other SIP alternatives? 
>Do you think any problems were with the phone sets themselves?
>
I would say a couple of issues were related to the phones, eg the 
consultative transfer..

>
>Again, sorry to hear of your troubles.
>
>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: "Dave Alan Caruana" <david at melita.net>
>Reply-To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>Date:  Thu, 16 Oct 2003 15:21:02 +0200
>
>  
>
>>i've just lost $2000 dollars or so on my first commercial asterisk
>>installation ..
>>i'm running a PIV class server, three Digium Wildcard FXO cards, and
>>10 Grandstream Budgettone SIP phones. The system was to be a PBX
>>for a small company. After over 2 months of pissing about, the client has
>>had his fill of asterisk problems, and asked me to take my equipment
>>out of the building. Obviously, I haven't been paid for anything.
>>
>>The problems I faced were the following :
>>- initially a problem with asterisk crashing totally when there wasn't an
>>extension
>> to ring .. though this was fixed in a subsequent CVS, it was causing
>>downtime.
>> the client has no unix knowledge, and a script I put in to kick in the
>>asterisk
>> when it shut itself down didn't seem to always work.
>>
>> it also reduced the quality of my subsequent callout requests to something
>>on
>> the lines of "the phone server is crashed again" regardless of what the
>>problem was
>>
>>- a dialplan problem, where one phone was ringing 10 seconds after the
>>others,
>>  at the client's request and they were hearing other phones ring and
>>picking up
>>  a non-ringing phone (ok, I can't really blame that on asterisk ..)
>>
>>- echo on the lines .. that after much fiddling around with configurations
>>went from
>>  terrible to borderline acceptable. To people not used to digital
>>telephony and
>>  computer stuff, the echo was VERY annoying. They used to avoid the phones
>>  because they said people would not understand them.
>>
>>- no consultative transfer. The closest I got was to park the call, call the
>>other party,
>> tell him "a voce" which line the call is parked on and then get him to
>>pick up the call.
>> This is, in my opinion, a very basic feature that is missing on asterisk.
>>The park/
>> pick up sequence proved too difficult for the clients' secretaries to
>>grasp.
>>
>>- I could not get G729 working properly (license paid up, G729 up and
>>running). In
>> the absence of a manual, the fault solving process was something like "ask
>>a question
>> on the mailing list, get a few answers, go to the client, try it out,
>>fail, go back home,
>> send another question on the mailinglist" with about 48 hours for each
>>iteration. I was
>> also appearing a real chimp "expermimenting" stuff at the clients' office.
>>
>>At this point I decided to cut my losses, retreive the equipment and call it
>>a day.
>>When asterisk is well documented and released in stable releases, I will
>>willingly
>>consider it again. I would be willing to pay for a stable, documented
>>version of
>>asterisk. It is a lovely software, and to begin with I was very enthusiastic
>>about it.
>>I do understand that the support community is helpful, but the current
>>status of things
>>limits asterisk to a hobbyist scenario or at least somewhere where there is
>>an engineer
>>with lots of linux experience and patience online 24 hours to solve problems
>>as they
>>crop up.
>>
>>If anyone would like a couple of second hand FXO boards, contact me. I have
>>already found a home for the grandstreams.
>>
>>cheers
>>Dave
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Asterisk-Users mailing list
>>Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com
>>http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>>
>>    
>>
>
>--
>Costas Menico
>Meezon Software Corp
>201-224-8111
>costas at meezon.com
>
>--
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>Asterisk-Users mailing list
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>http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>
>
>  
>