MICS 7.0 or IP Office 406

[TheCardMan]

Looking for comparisons, pros/cons of each. Norstar MICS 7.0 and Avaya IP Office 406. I have a client that needs a system that supports 8 phones and basic voice mail. Wants an all intergrated system that could be installed and walked away from without having to worry about ongoing support. Something very stable. One trick to this application is that this office supports 3 other buildings (that have no phone system). A PRI will be installed and dedicated "Main Numbers" will need to ring into this system and be CLEARLY visible as to which building the call is for. So the system will need to be flexible in the programming so it can display where the call is comming from. Phones need to be very user friendly.

There will be no space for any external type of voice mail (no PC based). Voice mail is real simple, just a few mailboxes for some people. Do not even think auto attendant is needed.

Any suggestions as to which system listed above will suit me better will be appreciated. Comments about each are welcome.

Thanks

 

[paterson]

I would consider the Nortel BCM 200 rather than the Nortel Norstar MICS if you are going with a Nortel product. You will not be able to go to IP in the future on the Norstar and the Norstar MICS does not have a built-in VoiceMail - The BCM does have a built in VoiceMail (CALL PILOT). The BCM is also designed to fit into a standard 19" computer rack, unlike the Norstar MICS. These two products from Nortel are VERY similar in programming and phone set offering (except IP sets).

I do not know a lot about the Avaya systems, but I have not heard anything seriously bad about them. I am fairly confident that the system you mention has a built-in VoiceMail.

 

[youcandoit]

if u wanna go IP telephony call manager express on a 2800 series router with a UNITY(voicemail) module .19" 2u form factor. you can build redundancy or high availibilty into the implementation such as fail over or redundant gateways,unity,call manager express ippbx.this is a cost effective solution for the soho environment. however may require engineering assistance for any configuration changes after initial instll.

avaya would probably cost more than the nortel but avaya systems are known for 99.9% uptime. i've worked with prologix, g3si, g3r. much bigger than the ip office which i have never work with by the way. i do like avaya tho.

 

[TheCardMan]

Thanks, Yes the IP Office has Embedded voice mail, 15 hours and a max of 500 mailboxes. All included in the Basic cost of the IPO 406 V2. I know the Norstar is a good system but my concern are the phones and how they can be programmed to look and "say" anything. Are they flexible enough with programing? Can I have the calls that come in ring to the phone and on the display say 'Incomming Call from Building 2", 'Incomming Call from Building 3", etc.? Also, can some answer if nortels voicemail runs on Win NT? Even though it's not a seperate PC hosting the application?

youcandoit - I do like Call Manager Express, I manage a 5 site call manager 4.1 cluster w/Unity for this same client but Ciscos pricing is way out there and they are looking for a cost effective system in these small property offices which usually only have 2 to 4 people. They do not need ot to connect to the larger CCM enviroment.

 

[ISDNman]

Not sure if you need to connect BRI devices to the system, but last I heard the IP office only supports ETS300 euro ISDN, not any of the US standards.

Even if your ISDN equipment supports Euro ISDN, if you need the ability to make voice as well as data call then it will have support Euro ISDN combined with mu-law signaling, despite the fact the signaling will indicate the call is A-Law encoded.

good luck

 

[aarenot]

PRI is no issue for the IPO, it has imbedded VM, easily customer administrated after install. You can route incoming calls on the PRI to any destination you want, or even direct calls, or ignore them based on CLID. You can have IP phones, hard phones, analog, or all three. With basic phone manager interface for the PC out of the box, inluded software, you can use analog phones and still have buttons to use on the PC.
IP Office is capable of providing full-featured voice functionality as well as data routing, thus minimizing infrastructure overheads and offering a single point of management.

You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.

 

[tech2233]

I have worked with the Norstar, BCM, and Avaya IP Office. The Norstar is an older style key type system with no VoIP functionality. The BCM is Nortel's VoIP based system comparable in functionality to Avaya's IP Office. The IP Office has many features that are not available on the BCM.

The IP Office has silent record, 64 party conference bridge built in, 30 outbound conference call capability, TAPI for every handset included, auto record of calls on a per set, group, or time of day basis, unlimited ACD queues, stability in hardware architecture and design ...

The last point should not be taken lightly though, since Nortel's BCM product has been plagued with problems since inception.

Almost Every single BCM product released since its inception has had a complete product advisory and hardware recall issued on it. And the component parts that have been recalled are substantial system components which could result in total system failure. These parts are BCM 1000 motherboards, and BCM 200 and 400 system trays. Every single product in the last 5 years has had a recall.

The BCM product still runs with Microsoft NT as its core operating system. NT has been phased out for many years now, and Nortel is still operating its main telephone system with this platform. Not only has the NT operating platform proved problematic for Nortel, but there have been no fewer than 60 Nortel (Microsoft) security bulletins issued in the last 3 years. Many of those are serious security holes into the BCM product, and multiple BCM systems in the field have been hacked into (despite the patches being applied).

From an architectural perspective, the BCM product needs a complete re-design. The points of failure need to be re-assessed; for example, the redundant option comes with mirrored drives, but if the primary drive becomes corrupted (which based on the above is not uncommon), it copies over the corruption to the back-up drive. Both redundant power supplies share the same electrical source. A power issue at the source would take down the entire system (it should come with 2 electrical cables). And for those customers deploying multiple IP sets, all of those IP phones are working off of one LAN card, which if it should fail, would crash the entire system.

Although the BCM product has had several new releases in the last 2 years (BCM 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7) the majority of these product releases are to fix bugs from previous versions. The largest release came in 3.6 with a completely re-done call center and reporting software, which still does not work reliably.

Anyway, I could go on and on.

 

[aarenot]

I do not have extensive experience with the BCM, but I do not trust windows, or the NT version.

In two years, I have not seen a IP Office processor module, or other module fail in the field except when other electrical devices also failed suspiciously at the same time. Lending itself to a probable electrical event like lightning, or electrician error.

You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.

 

[big70]

IP-office is the best solution under 50 users.
I do many brands but like the IP-office because it has many features and is flexibale.

Only thing is you need a an engineer that now what he,s doing. Because he can make it or break it.

Programing is very easly but also you can easly write a bad config that can crasch the IP-office.
Also he needs the software level to use.

But like i said if you have the right engineer, it will give you a lot of pleasure.

Greets Peter