[Asterisk-Users] I give up!!

[Chris Albertson]

You went about this all backwards.  In any mission critical
system FIRST you design, build and test the system
extensively THEN and only then. do you deploy it.

OK, maybe it's just because I'm in the aerospace bussinees
I'm used to a high level of quality assurance and testing

What you find in CVS is NOT a product.  You need to build a
working product, debug it, build a support system for it
(decent user manuals and training material) test the heck
out of your configuration.  Design a failure recovery plan
(what happens if a power suply smokes?) and only then go
knocking on people's doors.

The idea is that you drop off a turn key system and not do
development in the costomer's office.

I've paid to have a phone system installed and we wrote up
the deal that after it worked we'd pay for it and any
problems in the first 90 days were to be fixed at no
cost to us.  Most people expect phone to "just work".

--- Dave Alan Caruana <david at melita.net> wrote:
> 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


=====
Chris Albertson
  Home:   310-376-1029  chrisalbertson90278 at yahoo.com
  Cell:   310-990-7550
  Office: 310-336-5189  Christopher.J.Albertson at aero.org
  KG6OMK

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