Need help finding telephone system

If you want the ability to have some form of unified messaging anytime in
the future, I would stay away from the Panasonic. Nevermind the little
bug where if the system restarts, you can't touch the phones for 3
minutes or so (on 2 cabinet systems), even if its ringing off the hook.
Panasonic, IMHO, has never seemed to keep pace with adding new features.

IMHO, I'd go with Nortel.

Of course, you will get all kinds of opinions, mostly where the system
recommended is the system the person works on the most, like mine.




Not to beat you up, but the very first message that started this
thread was the ability to use single line sets in a 4x5 or so
configuration. I work on Panasonic, but I would never recommend it
for 25 multi-line sets even. How much would 5 ATA's and a voice mail
cost in a Nortel CICS? A lot more than a Panasonic :-).

Mike wanted 4-8 incoming lines with an unknown quatitiy of extensions.
How does the CICS grow to 9 lines? The same way a Panasonic grows to
17...forklift or take your SPS and make a dual cabinet system :-)
I only pointed out that a Panasonic 1232 digital with voice mail would
start out at about 3K retail and grow nicely to the 8x12 system. And
yes, I do use a Panasonic in my office with one digital set and 3
single line devices on 3 lines with analog voice mail.

Carl Navarro

(original thread follows)
.

I don't know how much the digital Pana costs. With an unknown number of
lines, I would go with the MICS. With modules, it can get to upwards of
120 or so lines (with a couple T1's or PRI's). There is now an ASM
(Analog Station Module) available for the MICS as well. 2 ASM's can be
tied together to occupy only 1 fiber expansion port and provide up to 16
single line dial tones. I believe, but I'm not sure, that the ASM's
provide disconnect supervision now also.

If I had to guess on price (I really don't know), I'd say the MICS with a
couple trunk cards to start off 8x32 would be about US$2000. That would
be no analog ports though. More than a few analog ports & he's better
going with the ASM. A fiber exp card may be around $600 or so, and I
think an 8-port ASM is around $900. Probably better going with Nortel
M7100 sets (at about $150 each) in place of single lines in this case.

The cheap flash lite 2 port VM (10 mailboxes, no AA) runs about US$1000.
If you want to upgrade the flash lite to a regular 2-port flash, it just
takes a key code (probably a $500 option). The Flash VM's don't support
any type of unified messaging that I'm aware of though, I think he'd need
a NAM for that. I'm guessing here, but I'd bet that a 4-port NAM would
run about US$4000 or so.

Going from a CICS to an MICS, the customer gets to reuse the most
expensive part of the phone system--the phones. I wouldn't call that a
forklift upgrade.
But now the OP mentions some unified messaging issues. That's why I
mentioned the Nortel.

Where's Mitel Lurker at? I'm sure he probably would recommend a Nortel
toonot! :-)

Doesn't that add up to more than 2K? And I get AA and the ability to
grow to 8x16 without adding hardware. Yep, come to think of it, I can
roll a, (God forbid), Panasonic digital system into a TD-500 and keep
all the sets, but why?

Once again, we have taken a simple request in cdtt and built a
Mercedes out of a Yugo :-). Probably the only thing we used of the
original was the driver and maybe the gas LOL.

Carl

Mike,
If you want to have an idea about online prices, a PC-based telephone
system such as the Voice BD W/48 Trunk 2 T2 48 Voice DSP, will cost
you $7,830 at # , and a
conventional PBX system - such as the PBX GATEWAY 24PT SWCH-F/ NORTEL
MOD, will cost you $5,608 at
# .

Hope it helps and good luck !
Armando

Thanks for your answers. I will take a serious look at the Panasonic system.

The only reason I thought a PC system was preferable was that our whole
company runs on PCs, and it might be easier (or not!) to maintain them.
Also, it might be easier to set up PC-faxing, transfer voice mail into files
that can be stored by the individuals, in general facilitate everything that
involves a phone and a PC. Maybe not. I am not trying to bait anyone into a
senseless discussion here. I am completely new at this and at the moment I
am just trying to collect some information. Any suggestions where I might
find more info?

Mike

...

My vote is also with the Panasonic KXTD1232.
Many people consider PC based because its the "way of the future". But it's
usually not needed at all. Those who need it are willing to spend time and
money keeping it alive and working properly.

The KXTD1232 can do all the other things you ask for. Be sure to talk with
someone experienced with phones about your needs so you can get the right
system set up properly. One nice thing about the Panasonic is there are many
many experienced installers on this newsgroup and on an active mailing list
that can help if you go that route.

Charles

--


Global Communications
Tarrytown, NY
#
#
...

When you finish picking yourself up off the floor from the quotes,
check out the Panasonic KXTD-1232 with TVS-50 voice mail.
The box starts it's life at 8 lines and 16 extensions. One of them
must be a display set to do programming and the rest can be your
aforementioned reused sets.

No need to argue with me over PC vs. dedicated system. This thread
comes up at least once every 6 months :-).

Carl Navarro

Why the preference for a PC based system? Not trying to be rude or anything
but, why would anyone want to have their entire business run off anything
but a proven PBX or solid hybrid system?

--
Rich Campbell
Pantel Business Systems
Tech Operations
888-540-0418 x410


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