Nortel Meridian + Mitel 3300 and QSIG

[jneiberger]

My company is researching various options to move us to a solid VoIP solution. We're currently a Nortel shop but we're talking to Nortel, Avaya, Cisco, and Mitel. One intriguing idea for our existing locations is to keep the Option 11 and add a 3300 as a gateway to the IP network. From my reading tonight it appears that Nortel's implementation of QSIG is poor and incomplete. Do any of you know if that is still true of their newer releases?

We're running Succession 3.0 and 4.0. Do any of you have any experience using the Mitel 3300 as a gateway like this with a Nortel PBX?

If we select Mitel as our vendor of choice, our new locations will be all IP, all Mitel. We'd only use the gateway solution at existing sites as a migration step. Sometime over the next few years we'd go back and remove the Nortel PBX and phones from the older locations.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks,
John

 

[jneiberger]

Bump. Surely, someone here has some thoughts on this. LOL

We're in discussions with Nortel, Avaya, Cisco, and Mitel, and we're definitely leaning toward Mitel at the moment but I'd really like to hear some more opinions from the people who've actually had to use the stuff on a daily basis.

Any thoughts on this topic or on Mitel 3300s, in general?

Thanks!

John

 

[mitelman]

Never connected a 3300 to a nortel, so can't help you there. As for thoughts on the 3300, I'm biased, you can't go wrong, I don't have experience with any of the other PBX's you mention so I can't offer any fair opinion on netowrking features,etc.

 

[TheMitelGuy]

I too have never connected a nortel to a mitel. I will say the Mitel is so much easier to program then the nortel, hands down. I imagine after the mitel installation you will want to rip the nortel out. hahaha

neil

 

[jneiberger]

That's an interesting response coming from an Avaya Guy! LOL

I'm a data guy, not a voice guy, so I don't have to deal with the Nortel stuff directly. However, if we go to VoIP then I will have to learn the PBX side of things and I'd much rather learn the Mitel PBX than anything by Nortel. I've seen Nortel's interface and CLI and it's hideous.

I know there are historical reasons for it being the way it is, but it's still hideous and not user friendly. Mitel, on the other hand, looks very user friendly.

I would welcome any more specific comments about the 3300/3340 even if it doesn't have anything to do with connecting to Nortel gear.

Thanks!

 

[MitelTech]

Ours used to be hideous as well, but things improve. The very 1st version of 2000 software way back in 85 or so was disgusting, if you didn't know it, you couldn't program it, much like Nortel (haven't seen a Nortel switch in 10 years now, guess things haven't changed). But, over the years the developers made it easier to navigate the forms. Now, on the 3300 it's just a web interface laid over top of the old menu structure, point and click baby, it's a beautiful thing!

 

[tilf]

Hi there, I have installed 3300's onto meridian's using dpnss as this is more feature rich on most manufacturers kit except Nortel. The Mitel acts as a VOIP gateway and will slowly take over from the meridian. The idea was to use the mitel as the voicemail but the meridian doesnt use industry standard MWI over DPNSS so this wasnt possible - this works on Avaya INDeX perfectly. The meridian was an absolute nightmare and their new IP stuff seems horrific. The Mitel will work fine and is VERY reliable. I can highly recommend it!