ISW Systems
Vendor
- Feb 13, 2025
- 1
Hi all: I've been referring to this site for many years now and always found it helpful for Nortel advice. Been through a lot over the last 15 years with Nortel, Toshiba & NEC and their fallouts. Decided to give E-Metrotel a try. Nice people, pretty slick dealer portal and ordering system. The only commitment was to buy a demo system, so I did.
It wasn't too bad to figure it out and get it running. As a Toshiba dealer, we got very good hands on training, a week long, which set us out the door pretty competent. NEC was on line, learn as you go, support was iffy at best. Some were good, others not so much.
Have had an on line training session with E-Metro, which was useful, but a scenario based lab would be more relevant. I have no previous asterisk experience, but seems like I was able to pick it up pretty quick. I will say E-metro has a good ticket system. They are responsive, and try to close their tickets pretty quick. I decided to go this route as they are trying to integrate a lot of end points into the UCX system.
So, I sold and installed my first one. A Galaxy pro, with an 8 port FXO card on board, with a 2 slot Galaxy expand with a pair of DSM 16 card to complete phase 1, which was to absorb an expanded CICS with about 21 Nortel sets. It went flawlessly, and some of the loop lengths are 2000'! All the phones fired right up and have been running solid. For phase 2, we added 20 of their E-Metrotel IP phones (5008's, plus a 5010 and 5042 DSS console). Also, spun up 4 of their SIP trunks and 2 DID's, which I had going in a couple of minutes.
All of this was surprisingly easy, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the overall solution. Their built in VPN system (requires a little config) makes is easy to set up secure, remote access, and backing up the whole solution and saving a copy locally is also really easy.
NEC phone integration is coming (there is a YT video showing a 9100 digital set running on the UCX as an XSTIM device) which is pretty cool.
Worth looking into, since they have cloud or prem, support a fair number of TDM digital phones, and their line of IP phones are quite nice. The XSTIM protocol is pretty amazing once you get your head wrapped around how it works.
Hoping to connect here with a couple of other E-Metro guys to share experiences, ideas etc.
Cheers
Rick
It wasn't too bad to figure it out and get it running. As a Toshiba dealer, we got very good hands on training, a week long, which set us out the door pretty competent. NEC was on line, learn as you go, support was iffy at best. Some were good, others not so much.
Have had an on line training session with E-Metro, which was useful, but a scenario based lab would be more relevant. I have no previous asterisk experience, but seems like I was able to pick it up pretty quick. I will say E-metro has a good ticket system. They are responsive, and try to close their tickets pretty quick. I decided to go this route as they are trying to integrate a lot of end points into the UCX system.
So, I sold and installed my first one. A Galaxy pro, with an 8 port FXO card on board, with a 2 slot Galaxy expand with a pair of DSM 16 card to complete phase 1, which was to absorb an expanded CICS with about 21 Nortel sets. It went flawlessly, and some of the loop lengths are 2000'! All the phones fired right up and have been running solid. For phase 2, we added 20 of their E-Metrotel IP phones (5008's, plus a 5010 and 5042 DSS console). Also, spun up 4 of their SIP trunks and 2 DID's, which I had going in a couple of minutes.
All of this was surprisingly easy, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the overall solution. Their built in VPN system (requires a little config) makes is easy to set up secure, remote access, and backing up the whole solution and saving a copy locally is also really easy.
NEC phone integration is coming (there is a YT video showing a 9100 digital set running on the UCX as an XSTIM device) which is pretty cool.
Worth looking into, since they have cloud or prem, support a fair number of TDM digital phones, and their line of IP phones are quite nice. The XSTIM protocol is pretty amazing once you get your head wrapped around how it works.
Hoping to connect here with a couple of other E-Metro guys to share experiences, ideas etc.
Cheers
Rick
