Avaya vs. Shoretel 3

[jneiberger]

I'm hoping that GSmitherman will answer this.

We are currently an Avaya shop. Four of our locations have Avaya PBXs. One location has Avaya IP phones registered to the PBX at our main location. A bunch our sites are standalone systems running Comdial or ESI key systems.

We have two sites with old Comdial systems that need to be replaced soon. We want to make a move toward VoIP and we want to use those sites as a kind of pilot. We are looking at Avaya, ShoreTel, and Cisco. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

The biggest advantage for Avaya is that we're already an Avaya shop. The move to Avaya VoIP system-wide would not require any forklift upgrades at our major sites. The migration at any given site would also be easier because the Avaya system would continue to support our existing analog and digital sets.

However, I'm very impressed with the Shoretel system. It looks really great! If I were starting a company from scratch and needed to purchase a phone system, it would definitely be ShoreTel. However, in our case, the incumbent provider has a huge advantage. Avaya may not be the "best" system, but it may be the best fit for what we're doing.

Keep in mind that we're not talking about Avaya IP office, we're talking about a full-blown system, not the SMB product.

What do you think? If you were already an established Avaya shop with hundreds of Avaya digital and analog sets in place already, would you still make the move to ShoreTel for VoIP? Is it *that* good?

Thanks!
John

 

[kurthansen]

1. Avaya- Short code in user's personal short codes that says when dialing 91N don't allow call.

ShoreTel- Add user to correct user group with local only call permissions in COS.

2. Avaya- In ARS tables add area codes and prefixes to each site that are local calls to other sites and point it to their trunk #.

ShoreTel- Import local area codes and prefixes to each switch in the different locations and the system will take care of the rest.

3. Avaya has tons and tons of stuff you can do in VM pro.

ShoreTel-digits pressed: 0-9, *, #, Time-out, Too many errors, Invalid entry, Multiple Digits

From those digits pressed options are

Dial by FirstName
DIal by LastName
go to extension
go to menu
hang up
repeat prompt
Take a message
Take a message by FirstName
Take a message by LastName
Transfer

Hope that gives you some more information. I am still on the fence between the two systems. Avaya also comes out with new features all the time. The one that I would like to take the time to play with is the VPNPhone.

 

[aarenot]

VMPRO is beyond most VM platforms I have dealt with. I have installed over 25 different model VM systems, and it is probably the easiest, and most versatile for a system which is so easy to configure, yet simply packed with more capabilities than even most experienced techs can even master because of the variety of capabilities.

 

[sandybcoac]

We recently switched from traditional PBX to ShoreTel. Have had a few problems, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. Except for headsets. Users are experiencing delay between time the call is picked up and when they can actually talk to or hear the caller (from 15 sec to 2 min). Occurs on external & internal inbound calls. If user implements call, no delay is identified. We're using mix of GN Netcom and Plantronics headsets and have changed settings on all amplifiers. Anyone else heard of this problem? Any suggested solution? Need to get this settled soon.

 

[aarenot]

Call _Plantronics, it is probably with their headset settings, and they will know the needed settings.