[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk vs Nortel, Northstar and Mitel

[asterisk-users at ecessor.com]

Dakota,

Looking at it objectively, Asterisk has many benefits over traditional PBX
systems, yet you should be aware of some of the limitations.

Benefits:
1. Open source / low-cost of ownership / operates on cheap PC hardware. You
get voicemail, IVR, hunt-groups etc. without additional fees. Last I checked
those are all expensive add-ons in the Nortel world. There aren't expensive
licenses per user/handset either. 

2. Flexibility - you can configure Asterisk to handle calls to a microscopic
degree of precision. This is just not possible with traditional PBX systems
which are inherently proprietary. Asterisk also makes it easier to present
data to callers from CRM, Billing, Order Tracking systems etc. using
text-to-speech, automated-speech recognition and/or DTMF recognition. 

3. Flexibility again - It really is much more flexible than anything else!!

4. Supports multiple VoIP protocols - SIP, IAX, H323, (and skinny to a
degree) and supports connection of a broad spectrum of third party handsets
- e.g. Cisco, Siemens, Sipura, etc. IAX is a proprietary protocol for
Asterisk but it has some benefits over SIP (supposedly - my experience has
been a little different) and perhaps more importantly is gaining popularity
among VoIP service providers.



Limitations:

1. Digium PSTN interface boards are not as cheap as they could be and
haven't been around long enough for us to have meaningful data on how
reliable they are.

2. Complexity. Asterisk is powerful but it is complicated - which is it You
will need to spend a few weeks solidly learning about Asterisk and playing
with it in a test environment before even thinking about trying to install
it in a production environment. Clearly your time has a cost to your
employer - thus this may be perceived as problem with Asterisk. You can of
course buy in the services of an Asterisk consultant to help set things up -
but ideally you want to have someone on site with some degree of knowledge
about Asterisk's capabilities. If your business has basic telephony
requirements, doesn't need fancy features and wants to minimize the need for
on-site technical expertise to support Asterisk, then a Mitel/Nortel
solution MIGHT make sense. IMHO - the present level of
complexity/flexibility is the biggest strength and weakness to Asterisk.

3. Asterisk is a work in progress. Yes it's pretty stables and yes it's
being used in very large production systems from what one hears on this
list. However it's a moving target with new releases appearing frequently.
On a positive note that's great if you want new features and bug fixes - but
it can also be a pain if you want a nice stable, low-maintenance system.

4. Cost savings aren't necessarily as great at they first seem. You ideally
want to have redundancy on your Asterisk set up. To support 75 users you
probably want to have a couple of decent Dual-proc Pentium Xeon servers.
Sure you can build these cheap - but if your company is like mine you'll
probably buy from Dell/HP etc. which can make that a not-insignificant
investment. Then you'll need 2x PSTN interface cards for each machine.
Depending on your PSTN lines there this can cost anywhere from $800 - $3000
per card. So overall you can be talking perhaps upwards of $10,000 for the
hardware to support your asterisk installation. Handsets would obviously
cost more though you have the flexibility to choose any pretty SIP/IAX
handsets you like.

----
Hope these observations help. 

N




-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Dakota
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 5:30 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk vs Nortel, Northstar and Mitel

How does Asterisk compare to Nortel, NorthStar and Mitel PBX systems?
For a medium size company not growing past 75 extensions, would you
recommend Asterisk? 

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