3 BCM guides that you might find useful 6

[Firebird Scrambler]

I've recently done 3 guides and the main one is the setup of the email server and professional call recording features that are really useful on the release 6.0 versions. There are a few traps that prevent it from working, but I have explained it all using screen shots where possible.

Firebird Scrambler

Nortel & Avaya Meridian 1 / Succession & BCM / Norstar Programmer

Website =

http://somertel.com

linkedin

 

[telcodog]

I don't know where you are getting your pricing from. A brand new UCX250 with 8 user licenses has ans MSRP of $1208 USD. This means you would likely get it for less from an authorized reseller because of their volume discounts.

All you need to do is add your own IP sets (either Nortel or SIP) and they can be had pretty cheap. If you want to deal with Nortel digital sets, you would have to add a digital gateway but if you have a BCM50/450 sitting arounf, all you need to do is buy a replacement SSD for it. You can have unlimited SIP trunks, an enterprise grade call centre and the full suite of business applications so unless you want to deal with the advanced applications, so I don't know where you're getting 5K in additional licenses.

 

[DocRobotnik]

I am in canada, 1208USD is 2000$ around.

i have around 17 Digital set installed everywhere in the house, plus 6 IP sets. If i remember properly i saw licence around 140$ per seats, 3320$ of seats plus voicemail plus SSD for BCM plus all others application super nice like Advanced Page etc, i made the calculation few years ago.

Anyway, someday ! I may buy one peice of robot per year.


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* Doc Robotnik
* Network & Hardware Administrator
* Likedin

 

[Firebird Scrambler]

Perhaps I can act as a kind of mediator as I see this thread getting a little off topic.

All of us here, have or have had a passion for Nortel products such as Norstar and BCM etc. It's been a proven product that has sold worldwide over the 30 or more years which I consider to be a very long time in the electronics business.

Most of us will still know of customers who have a Norstar working well and this carries on with BCM's systems that had more features but tended to have more issues with moving parts such as hard disks or fans etc, but the concept of what the BCM did was on the same lines as the good old Norstar 6 + 16.

As I've said above, the BCM has been an excellent kit for customers due to it's simplicity compared to it's larger brother such as the Meridian 1 (Option 11-81 range). Avaya did what they did to cease development in favor of it's IP Office system.

It's just not possible to carry on with a system unless it's continually in tune with what the rest of the world is using such as 64 bit computers and newer versions of Office etc. CPU's and memory are always getting bigger and faster which means that Telephone systems have to redesign them or just shelve it and start afresh with a new product as manufacturers such as Mitel tend to do.

With regards to the E-Metrotel system, this bit of kit is very neat and it does as mentioned by others above. I tried out a demo version running on an old laptop that was destined for the bin with a 60 gig SSD in it. I was impressed with what it could do. It's based on an Asterisk Server, but the ex-nortel guys have managed to add in both Meridian 1 and Norstar / BCM wired sets and IP phones together onto one platform which for me was very impressive. I tried a number of combinations with SIP trunks and it works.

The only downside is that there doesn't appear to be a strong base of customers using E-Metrotel over this side of the pond. This is something that I feel should be explored by them as we are losing "Nortel" customers at a very fast rate. It's a very tough business to be selling telecom's kit these days and it seems that IP Office is currently doing quite well for the smaller market as it's very flexible. Mitel, Cisco are also good sellers with a number of smaller lesser known brand names.

I appreciate that the research and development costs need to be paid for and so it should because of what E-Metrotel have done. From my angle, it does appear to be expensive, but as suggested above, it depends on kit the customer currently has and what they eventually want to achieve. I just wish that they were able to put their name about with advertising over here.

Firebird Scrambler

Nortel & Avaya Meridian 1 / Succession & BCM / Norstar Programmer

Website =

http://somertel.com

linkedin

 

[telcodog]

Firebird.....sorry to have kind of hijacked this thread. Didn't mean to detract from the effort you put into your documents and posting for the rest of us to use.

I know that emetro does in fact sell into the UK market. Maybe you should give them a call and look into becoming a reseller. They are very flexible and the investment to become one is very small. You could even do it through an existing reseller like myself if you want to do a try-n-buy sort of thing until you want to go all-in.

The stuff they have right now and will be releasing in 2019 is way beyond what they started with. They are even coming out with a new digital gateway that's about half the size of an existing BCM DSM32 module with a telco connector on the front to support 16 phones. Kicker is, that module will support BCM and CS1K phones at the same time (just a note that the hardware in it is already capable of supporting Avaya and Mitel digital phones in the future). There will also be a cage where these things can plug into so you can eliminate Option 11 cabinets in the space where the telco cables connect and still continue to use the digital sets. Awesome stuff!

Their new emetrotel branded phones currently come with sip firmware in them and by Q1 next year, you will be able to load the Xstim firmware (think Unistim on steroids) into them and by the end of next year, will be able to load firmware that will allow them to work as Nortel digital sets. You will be able to change the firmware at will.

Their new Infinity One client is pretty awesome too. It's a UCC chat client that is actually clientless. You just web into your UCX system from any PC or android device (iphone and ipod coming in Q1) so you can operate anywhere you have an internet connection and a compatible device. No need to load anything onto your device. The "client" is also included with every user license so no additional licenses are required.

All very cool stuff but you can see most of it right on their website.

 

[Firebird Scrambler]

Telcodog, a star from me for your excellent reply. Don't worry about hijacking the thread. It's all constructive comments.

Firebird Scrambler

Nortel & Avaya Meridian 1 / Succession & BCM / Norstar Programmer

Website =

http://somertel.com

linkedin