On Premise PBX Recommendations 2023 3

[RNA Errors]

The last few years have seen big changes in the industry with Panasonic, Toshiba pulling out and cloud VOIP being so heavily marketed. We don't do a lot of new installs especially since Panasonic has shut down their product lines. I am in need of recommendations / option for an on premise PBX and value any input yall have to give. This project is for a small parish office staff of 5-7, currently on a 17 yr old Vodavi StarPlus STS with 3 COs (POTS over coax). Digital / IP are on the table on the station end, loop start / SIP on the trunk side.

So far I'm looking at

Avaya IP Office 500 v2 with digital handsets however it looks like their licensing model is as bad or worse than Panasonic. We also are not a partner and that would need to happen in order to go that route from what I have read.

Grandstream UCM 6301 with Yealink IP handsets. Feature set is great, price is great but I read conflicting reports in regards to reliability and longevity of the PBX.

Panasonic NS500 with IP or digital handsets. Licensing is now open so price is great on entry but given that parts are going to be hard to come by in the not too distant future I'm hesitant to go that route but considering it nonetheless.

Cloud VOIP. TBH I'm trying to avoid this given the control these services have, the reliability issues inherent in relying on Internet uptime and the TCO.

Once again I welcome your thoughts regardless or perhaps especially if they are contrary to mine.

 

[OldAndKnackered]

ELG iPECS UCP is worth a look

 

[jsaad]

NEC SL2100. Great product.

http://www.tgscorp.com

 

[telcodog]

Emetrotel if you like the Nortel stuff and Yeastar for a total IP solution. Both are capable of analog, digital, wireles and voip trunks and analog stations if you need them and they both support pretty much any sip phone on the market. Emetro also supports almost every Nortel phone ever made, Panasonic digital and Avaya IPO digital sets, and also includes their Infinity One (not available on the Galaxy Mini) which is similar to MS Teams (only better) and the Yeastar has their Linkus app for mobility.....both great products and easy to work with.

 

[CMUK]

NEC is pretty good, I wasn't a fan at first but we replaced panasonic with it and it's been fairly decent.

Calum M
ACSS

 

[RNA Errors]

CMUK

How would you compare the NEC SL2100 with the Panasonic NS700? I've only had limited experience with NECs enterprise PBXs (9300 series) and while fairly solid they were prone to requiring reboots to clear call quality or ports that were tied up with phantom calls. That and management was a bit of a bear but what PBX isn't? The biggest turn off for me with NEC enterprise PBXs was the hefty price tag for desktop application licenses. Does the SL2100 have a decent desktop application for call control, voicemail, etc? NEC definitely had that over the Panasonic NS series but there again the developer was Zeacom and the price was sky high.

 

[RNA Errors]

Telcodog

I've reached out to Emetrotel but have not heard back as of yet. Do you have a lot of experience with the platform? How reliable have they been for you? Any additional information as a reseller or end user would be appreciated.

 

[telcodog]

I've been working with these systems for over 10 years and they are rock solid. Have never had one of them fail yet and I have installed hundreds of various capacities. They don't install anything themselves but use resellers for that. You can go to their website where you can locate a dealer from. Not sure where you are but these things are so simple to work with, any vendor anywhere can help. Personally I have systems that are installed right across the US and Canada from my office.

Go to their website and click on the "Company" tab then click the "where to buy" and pick from there. You'll get a better,faster response from a dealer because emetro doesn't sell/install stuff but spend most of their time on R&D and dealer support.

 

[CMUK]

I feel the SL2100 is an ideal replacement for an NS700, out the box you get 4x SIP Trunk licenses, 4x IP Phone Licenses and 4x Mob App Licenses (if using mob apps this uses an IP extension license), there is a desktop softphone, I'll be honest it's not great from what I've seen but the mobile app is decent.

The system programming is definitely a bit more involved than most but once you get a hang of it you can create scripts to automate some of the programming, for example I have scripts for different carriers SIP trunks with different channel quantities to make it a bit of a breeze.

The NEC DECT once installed is the best DECT system I have worked with, I've used Panasonic/Avaya/Nortel/Siemens/LG before and the InDECT system blows them out the water.

We haven't had any major hardware failures yet, I just feel some of the handsets don't look as nice as the Panasonics, but that can be down to taste.



Calum M
ACSS

 

[gbaughma]

The NEC systems are nice, and their phones are solid.
That being said, if you're going to maintain them yourselves, get ready to go to Dallas to go to class. They're not intuitive, and (especially if you program from a phone) they can be downright confusing... do a dance on the keyboard to get into setup mode, then have to know what feature you want to change, by number, and what value you wish to change it to.

(Disclaimer: I don't work for NEC or any company any longer that does NEC installs, but I am certified on several NEC systems)

Where I am at currently, we're running an ASTERISK distro with Yealink phones.
Let me say, I *love* what Yealink is doing with their stuff recently. I have about 150 phones that I maintain. They are extremely versatile, and I would recommend them for any VOIP-based system, including any of the online cloud-based PBX solutions, because they will just work. In the 7 years I've had all these phones deployed, I've had like 2 displays go out. A good track record for any system.

Asterisk is very versatile, and very configurable. Not to mention affordable. To be honest, this entire install where I'm currently working would have been 5x the amount if I had gone with NEC. Now, don't get me wrong, NEC is rock solid, but if I had to pay for all the features I have with Asterisk, it probably would be closer to 10x the price.

My current asterisk system is: about 150 phones, 8 virtual fax modems answering about 20 fax numbers, all pooled together with fax-to-email distribution, outbound fax right from the desktop (through a virtual printer... if you can print it, you can fax it!) Two PRIs, call recording, IVR, two touch-screen switchboards at the front desk, IP Soft phones (PC and smartphone based), remote locations/stations, and a VPN bridge to ANOTHER asterisk PBX at another office, which has about 15 stations and 8 VOIP Trunks.

Plus, you can do things on Asterisk that you just plain can't do on the NEC systems. For example, a pre-ring message "This call may be monitored or recorded" to the caller. Multiple IVR paths based on date, time, etc. Just... so much.


Just my $.02

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg