Norstar VoIP Gateway Questions 1

[jsampsell]

I started with a search on here for VoIP Gateway and the last post was back in 2009. I read through a lot of what was already on here but I still have questions.

Just so you know what you are dealing with here, I am not a professional installer but I support our small office needs just fine typically.

All but one of my salesmen are 20-50 miles away from the office. These past two days we've had really bad snow and ice and we have had to be closed because nobody could get into the office. Aside from VPN access to their computers I would love to be able to add remote telephone access so that, as long as the weather hasn't affected power at our homes and at the office, we can answer any incoming calls as if we were in the office.

I know there are companies that offer full IP PBX solutions and I know that there are hosted solutions as well. The owner of the company won't go for a complete overhaul of our system so I was wondering if there was a VoIP add-on to our current Norstar MICS system that would allow us to accomplish what I mentioned above. I found the Norstar VoIP Gateway through Google but coming here and searching for posts about it, it appears that it is really only for connecting remote branches and not what I'm looking to do.

We use two T1s bridged for our system right now and I believe we are PRI. Any light you can shed on this subject for me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jeremy

 

[oldestgeek]

There aren't any good solutions for your situation as your system isn't IP enabled. You might try an ATA connected to a SIP gateway and another SIP gateway at the other end. Make sure they support both FXO and FXS. They'll use a regular analog phone but that may be all you need. You can find these for less than $100 each.

Look into upgrading to a BCM50 and reusing all your existing sets and giving remote users VoIP sets. It was designed to do what you're wanting.

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

Oldestgeek is correct.

Interestingly enough though, a friend wanted a Nortel system in his house in Indianapolis, 170 miles south of my location in Chicago, so I bought him an 8x24 DR3 on ebay for $25, and some 7310 sets for $5 a piece on ebay and we wired up his suburban 2 level house and basement/garage with Norstar phones. He originally just wanted the system for an intercom so his kids could page or call in the house or for his wife to call their kids to dinner.

Then since I am running a BCM with SIP trunks in my home office/test lab, I created 2 DID's for him on my SIP provider and went to CDW and bought a Cisco PAP2 ATA device. We plugged the ATA into his home router from Comcast and ran the other end to the CO ports on his Norstar and he can call me via a six digit intercom call via our SIP provider. Annoyingly enough but for kicks, he can even page me through my sound system in my home office. Since we are both on the same account, we can call each other for free between Indianapolis and Chicago at no charge, other than the monthly DID fee which is $1 per line.

Let me know if you need more details.

 

[jsampsell]

Thanks for the reply guys. I decided to lookup Nortel online to see if they'd have one of their authorized local people call me about this and apparently Avaya bought them out a year ago. Not really a problem to me but the lady who I finally spoke with pushed the Avaya IP Office product. Any experience with this product? They are coming out on Monday morning to see what I've got and talk about what they'd recommend.

 

[curlycord]

How many users??????

If a lot then you should upgrade to BCM or IP Office (which will soon be compatible with the nortel sets).

Or if just a few users then go with digital extenders
EXTender 4000 for each user
Extender 6000 at the PBX site.

Something like that, you need to speak with a rep at Citel for more info.

http://www.citel.com/Products/EXTender/suite.asp

=----(((((((((()----=
curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

 

[jsampsell]

curlycord - We currently have 15 phones on our MICS in the building and I need to have the ability to add 10-12 remote phones with the ability to have everything running concurrently. Don't know if that's possible or not but that's what I'm going after. If it's not possible to do a mixed setup like that then I just need to look at upgrading to a full VoIP system with the same capacity I guess.

 

[oldestgeek]

The BCM is exactly what you need. You can use your existing digital sets at the local site and new IP sets at the remote over a VPN or a point-to-point.

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

To add, BCM is still currently being manufactured and support will be around for years to come. If you upgrade to a BCM, your features will work fairly identical to an older Norstar platform.

Again, if you want to try the other option with the ATA devices, that's an inexpensive method to your request.

 

[nws2002]

An easier option might be speaking with your telecom provider. They might have the ability to do "find me follow me" with the DIDs.

We use the Citel extenders for a few remote offices, but they can get pricey fast.

 

[jsampsell]

Thanks for the additional replies. I met with an Avaya/Nortel reseller today to discuss this and their recommendation was to switch out the MICS to their IP Office product. I just have to wait until March before the Nortel T7316E sets are supported on the IP Office platform. Whether they were just trying to sell me something or not, who knows, but they said the BCM products are being phased out. I realize there will be an amount of supported time if I bought them but I am leaning toward going with the Avaya product. One of the cards for that box has 10 IP lines in addtiion to some digital lines for $600 retail. I'm not sure what the total cost for what they are talking about will be yet because they haven't received pricing on it yet. I'll update the topic just for future reference for others that might stumble on it.

 

[ankomtech]

Rather than rip-and-replace the existing hardware, you may connect your Norstar to a "hosted VoIP PBX", like RingCentral, Phone.com or many others. This way you will get all the latest voip features (including remote office) right on your legacy PBX hardware!

There is a specialized voip gateway designed specifically for this purpose - look at SAN3000 at

http://www.ankom-tech.com

 

[jsampsell]

Thanks for the info ankomtech! I'll definitely call and talk about what you offer with the SAN3000 and compare it to what I've already looked into.

 

[GordonKapesMZ4]

I've done something similar to Ankomtech with my voip.ms account. I explained it above.