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

[Schochet, Wes]

The other thing I'll say about my PBX is that there is no comparison between
my Nortel i2004 and any  SIP phone I've seen.  Yes, the cost is slightly
more, but for an instrument that I interact with constantly - there is no
SIP device to compare.  I know there will be eventually, but not now!

-----Original Message-----
From: O'Connor, Jonathan [mailto:Jonathan.OConnor at inoveris.com] 
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 10:37 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Asterisk vs Nortel, Northstar and Mitel

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?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com --
> 
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com --
> 
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> 
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com --

Asterisk-Users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users