BCM vs Norstar

[dmeche]

I have a customer who wants VoIP, even though he is not sure what it is. He wants to use his computer as a phone and save on his LD bill.

Does anyone have an opinion about when a BCM becomes cost effective over a Norstar?

What are the "great" advantages of VoIP? I know the draw backs, but can anyone sell me on this over a Norstar for a company that may grow to 40 phones at most? they are at 16 ext. now.

 

[jsaad]

The BCM programs just like a norstar. In my opinion, the benefit of the BCM over the Norstar is it will allow you to have remote IP phones over a WAN.

 

[lugerlover]

personally i believe 80 of the customers who have purchased a bcm will never use it for what it was inteneded for.If someone want to save on call you dont need a bcm you need ip trunks and almost all cable companys/vonage will supply it..Also most T1 providers will supply ip T1's that can be installed into a norstar.

 

[dmeche]

Do Norstar 0 X 32s take IP trunks? Or do I need a BCM for that.

 

[Norstarguru]

Ok,
Here we go. If you purchase IP Trunks from a company like Vonage you can use them on any system through your high speed internet connection. If your internet connection goes down you are out of a phone line.

Another example of an IP Trunk is if I had to BCM systems and I wanted to get them connected over the network, I would purchase IP Trunk Keycode for the BCM too allow the two system to talk to eachother.

Every BCM I sell is used for an intended purpose, this is why you discuss the needs of the customer before you sell them the system.

Perfect Senario for a BCM- Multiple locations that want to be transparent to each other - Example of one I just finished- Real Estate office- 3 locations (30 Users at remote, 20 users at another remote, 40 users at the main locations) We purchased a managed WAN and Internet Pkg with a PRI from the local provider now every realtor has a private Line and Private fax #. The two remote offices have IP phones, the Main location has T7316 phones, They have one voicemail to maintain, and one system to maintain that can be accessed at any location on the computer network- instead of 3 norstar systems and multiple t-1s or e&m trunks connecting the systems. I can do a Page and it pages every phone in all 3 locations- can transfer a call seamlessly, voice call anyone, transfer a call to voicemail for anyone, Auto Paging with the Call Pilot to locate an available realtor at any time in all 3 locations. I hope this helps.

norstarguru

 

[dmeche]

Guru;

Thanks, that helps a lot. I did something similar with an Op 11 through a point to point T1.

This customer is basically listening to all of the news on VoIP. I told him if he continues to expand that a Norstar 0 X 32 would be enough with a PRI and a block of 50 DIDs. That should get him the savings he needs on LD. So far his plans are to go to anywhere from 30 to 50 extensions in one office, and maybe a straight T1 or a PRI. He may want to do the WAN set up into a BCM for remote access. He is also talking about soft phones which I am not completely sold on. The last version I tested just before I got laid off for NextiraOne, the customer I let test it wrote his supervisor a whole page of reasons he did not like it. The install was fine, everything worked as it should have, but he complained about the cumbersome dialing and the fact the phone did not pop up on the screen when it rang. That and a few other details. He eventually stopped using it and went back to his desk phone.

At present, I am running 6 analog trunks from Cox cable into a CICS with 16 extensions. He has his internet and cable telephone set up via converters that change the signal to loop start analog, just like a house phone on cable. So in that sense he is using one provider and a type of IP trunk.

Do cable companies provide PRIs? All of my experiance is with TDM and the local Bell companies. I am trying to get a handle on VoIP.