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

[O'Connor, Jonathan]

Not sure I completely agree with all of these.

> 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. 

You get what you pay for, yes it operates on cheap hardware, but if you
go that route you risk loss whatever system you run.  

> 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. 

I would have to agree mostly...  The Definity ECS we have also has a
level of detail and ability that is close to (and in some areas exceeds)
Asterisk.  Of course that's a 24000 handset capable system so I would
hope it does :)

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

If you consider cost yes, otherwise you have to take a strong look at
some of the VoIP offerings out there.  I don't want to sound like a huge
Avaya fan, but their newer IP stuff is being designed from a whole new
perspective.

> 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.

This I love about it.  I use Atcom AT320 phones here for home users with
cable/DSL and only have to have one firewall port open for them, its
beautiful in its simplicity.  Internally we use Polycoms running SIP and
Ciscos.... Plus a few ATAs and softphones running whatever the user
prefers!

> 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.

I agree they havent been around that long, however I have never spent
more then $600 on a single port T1 card and that's both cheaper then the
ones for my traditional PBX and other manifacturers I have seen.  They
have to make a profit, and I cant see that sort of card with this small
a market compared to other devices being able to come down much more...

> 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.

Agree 100%, however its not alone here....  I have an Avaya Definity, a
Nortel and a Vodavi switch in this company to run...  In the end the
Avaya is "slightly" easier to manage then Asterisk but not much, and
both are FAR easier then the other two.

That said, Asterisk is the glue that bonds them, in that each one is
connected to an Asterisk server with a T1 card and we have 4 digit
dialing throughout our enterprise because of it, over IAX trunks.

> 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.

"stable, low-maintenance"  I wish my Avaya Voicemail was....  The Audix
LX is the worst thing they have ever made.  My Vodavi system is a piece
of crap that makes me want to go postal every time I try and get it to
do the simplest thing....  Last software "upgrade" they sent us disabled
all of the Hold/Mute etc... Buttons on the handsets!


> 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.

Here is where Asterisk won out over the other vendors....  We use Dell
Poweredge servers for the Asterisk machines, not cheap machines and very
reliable.  I built the entire system here, attached it to our Definity
and had a VoIP system running for HALF of the cost of the 1 single board
needed to enable these functions in the Definity (a Medpro board).  All
the Medpro would have gotten me is trunking on H323 too, if I wanted to
add more I would have had to get a media server and all manner of things
added just to serve handsets.  Our quote was over $30,000 for the whole
lot!  So far I have three sites connected with trunks over existing
links (one is actually a VPN over the Internet), redundant servers at
each location, a growing group of users at home and across the country
with IP Phones..... All for less then half of that.  Handsets from Atcom
are $60 when we buy them direct from China, heck the Polycoms bought are
usually cheaper then the handsets for our PBX systems.

As always its horses for courses on where the savings can be made.
Instead of an average of 5 intermeshed calls going over the public
networks and costing us upwards of 3 cents a minute, we have those calls
routed across IP now.  Users in Ohio can just pickup and dial a user in
Utah as though they were in the next cube.  3 of our developers work
entirely from home now and never come into the office (their previous
offices were not good work environments).  We have hired people across
the country and sent them phones, so now they too are part of the 4
digit dial.  Least cost routing is running out of our Canadian facility
so that calls to Canada from any other facility route OUT of our Toronto
switch saving us a packet.  

In my world I see no point in going pure IP, Asterisk has a long way to
go before it could be anything like my Definity in reliability and
stability etc... But it was a huge cost saver, opened a whole new world
of abilities for our employees and made us unite as one company.  To us
its been worth its weight in gold.

-Jonathan





> 
> ----
> 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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