Avaya Maintenance 3

[mrhoward]

Good afternoon,

In reviewing our Maint. invoices I see that we are paying for full blown service - there is an item detailing 3914 ports under Enterprise Voice Systems Maintenance. It is my understanding that we are paying $2.06 per port, per month. Have any of you investigated cutting down to core coverage, and not paying the port charges on station ports, etc.

Just seems a little crazy to spend thousands a month for coverage on a TN2224, when I can have one waiting on the shelf, and replace it (if necessary) faster than any tech could arrive....If any of you have explored this, I'd apprieciate the insght. Thanks,

 

[n00benduser]

What is Avaya maintennce? I know not of what you speak of. Actually I ended my contract a long time ago for the same questions you are asking...found a Business Partner and signed with them. The contract is more flexible and I get better service. More bang for my buck

 

[mrhoward]

Understood. I am looking at an alternate vendor for the core, but wanted to make sure I was clear on what was going on before the switch was made. Thanks.

 

[TMiyake]

One big difference with the Avaya contract vs. a business partner contract is the fact that if the PBX blows up for some strange reason, Avaya will have a brand new one at your office within 24 hours. That sounds like a good thing, but what are the odds that the PBX will be destroyed vs. not being able to get to it due to a natural disaster or something? If the PBX is still intact, Avaya won’t replace it. We let our Avaya contract go also. You would think for all the money you pay for a maintenance contract, version updates would be either heavily discounted or free. When you pay enough to replace a card every other month, what sense does it make?

I hope this helps,

Tom

 

[lopes1211]

I'm lucky to get a card within 3-7 days with Avaya for $9K/m in maint. I've had system installs scheduled months in advance where no one even shows up and I have had a reseller or myself install before even hearing from them. I STRONGLY disagree with the fact that they are incapable of supplying an Exp-Intf, SNI, or DS1C card in less than a week on any number of occasions but an entire PBX is going to magically show up in the event of a disaster. Don't hold your breath.

-CL

 

[1a22ip]

Guys:
Another way to reduce Maint costs is drop you set coverage. They are many after market vendors that will cover them on a as needed basis. Also change the coverage to business day 5X8X4 08:00 to 5:00 coverage. Avaya made a good product and full blown maint is not necessary as it was in the old Sys/85 days

Thanks
ED

1a2 to ip I seen it all

 

[G van Hamburg]

MrHoward,

Were are you located?



Plan your work............Work your plan

 

[VOIPeng]

Look at other options for maint. contracts. Some BP's offer 4 hour response time and have inventories in the Million$

Thank you,
VOIPEng

 

[mrhoward]

Just south of Boston. I have a vendor that I am pleased with, and would surely give me response time less than 4 hours if I needed it (TriNet Systems). I am ready to at lease knock it down to core and let TriNet pick up the rest.

 

[freddiespencer]

As has been hinted in earlier anwers, the G3 Definity family are solid and a top product - in nearly 9 years I've yet to change a "white pack" in anger, just upgrades etc..

I too have canned my annual maintenance contract in favour of a call-out basis... we're £30k pa in front!!

It should also be noted that there are a lot of BP's after your business.

Regards,

FS

 

[mikeydidit]

I have sent in several replies as far as Avaya and their maintenance goes. About 5 years ago I convinced my director to drop maintenance all together for the following reasons. Avaya’s idea of routine maintenance was to vacuum out the filters. That only cost us about $115,000 a year. The full maintenance contract reads that if it is an after hours emergency the problem would have to be 75% service affecting or their would still be a charge for an Avaya tech to come out. If they replaced a circuit pack, it would be a refurbished pack with a 90 day warranty and the same cost as a new pack. We went with T&M until I was forced the have some sort of maintenance in place to keep our maintenance permissions. (This only saved us about $100,000 a year including NEW filters.) Things are better than they have been as far as options that are available in the way of maintenance agreements. I have a maintenance assist contract in place with an Avaya business partner. I am receiving better service than I have since the old AT&T days. I believe that the business are hungry for your business and will do extra. Look at the different maintenance programs that are available and find one that best meets your needs. In my case I ended up with better service and still saved about $80,000 a year.


Mikey

 

[mrhoward]

Thank you all - you've confirmed what I thought would be the case. mikeydidit, that is very similar to what our situation will be.

 

[tkinney]

I'm reviewing our invoices also, from now on I will be getting a copy from our A/P dept. every month! Can't believe some of the monthly charges on our AVAYA bills and some are for other divisons of our Corp. Can someone out there help with a Buisness Parner contact for the midwest area? I'm in Indiana and we have a Definity G3si V6. Also, I'm assuming you HAVE to keep some sort of contract with AVAYA?
Thanks,
Tina

 

[Dustinn3]

Tina,

You might check with Cross Telecom at

http://www.crosstelecom.com

or NACR at

http://www.nacr.com

They service the midwest. As far as maintenance goes, you don't have to maintain a maintenance contract, but if you don't you lose your maintenance permissions. Their lowest cost maintenance offer is maintenance assist at .60 cents per port, which gives you your maintenance permissions and access to the website. Other than that most of the business partners are offering their own maintenance contracts at reduced rates as well.

 

[PeaveyPhones]

Our maintenance, with Avaya, used to cost $4,800 a month. $800 of that was for phones. As 1a22ip mentioned I dropped the sets. I MIGHT have a phone go bad once a month. 2500 sets are about $25, I get 7406's for $44, and 6416 for about $150. This saved $800 a month. That's $9,600 a year. Forever. Be sure and present that info you the people at your company that complain the IT department is a big money pit. There is a lot of low hanging fruit out there.
I'm getting bids now from two Avaya Business Partners to take over the maintenance. All ready got a bid for $3,300. That's $700 a month, you get the picture.
Keep track of all the money you save and present it as an annual savings. It looks more impressive. Heck, I ended up getting two new guitars and two amplifiers as a bonus for my efforts.
Also, take a look at unused ports. I'm getting ready to rearrange stations and free up six cards. Six cards that I won't have to pay maintenance on...

 

[tkinney]

Thanks for the info, I wasn't sure where the bottom line was. Trying to clean up a mess here, when they installed and again when they upgraded our system (Lucent) went through our Finance Dept. to sign their agreement (before my time here)! Needless to say we are getting charged for everything under the sun and I don't know too many company accountants who even know what a port is. This forum has really opened my eyes on this situation.
Thanks to all,
Tina

 

[kristiandg]

You might want to check out Avaya's Maintenance Assist. Its software-only support and allows you to call them when you're having problems, but the hardware remains your responsibility. Plus, it gives you the Maintenance Permissions...

Kris

 

[acicomp]

I have being reading the posts here and it seems that everyone has had bad experiences with "maintenance" as we all have had. This past year, Avaya has been coming up with new methods of billing for service/ports/etc.. We hooked up with a BP up in New York this past year that has saved us about 40% on our Avaya Maintenance. We are still under Avaya contracts, but a lot cheaper. I am not affiliated with them, but would highly recommend anyone suffering from "cost burnout" to give them a call. It never hurts to try. There are also some new changes coming out from Avaya after first of the year that might cost you regardless of who you have "maintenance" from. If anyone is interested , drop me an e-mail and I will pass the info along. csheltcomp@skybest.com

 

[Databright]

Avaya has come up with some really good and competitive offerings lately. Sure they'll want to sell you the full blown version, but just ask them to give you all the different flavors: Full coverage 7x24 or 8x5; Parts Plus Remote; Remote Only; Maint Assist, etc.
On top of that their moldel has recently change to a "per port only" offer. Basically you'll only pay for equipped ports/trunks. Not for that old-rusty stuff sitting on a dusty shelf
They've also come up with multi-vendor offerings that will support your Ciscos, Nortel & Siemens switches, sets, etc.
They're getting big in Network Assesment, Security Assesment and Business Continuity.
Even though I'm an ex-Avayan, I still have really good friends on the-inside and work closely with them.
Feel free to contact me if you need further info...
Happy Holidays!!!!!!
**Databright**