Our department is assuming responsibility for our company's PBX and VMail system.
The PBXs are NEAX 2400 IMGs and NEAX 2000 IVSs. The VMail system is to be replaced.
Web searches are producing mostly VoIP hits.
We are interested in finding resources for our current system/technology. Resources do not need to be specifically about NEC if you know generic legacy analog PBX resources, please provide.
Any VMail links or suggestions that will fit our legacy equipment will also be greatly appreciated.
One question that keeps coming up concerning VMail is that we should look for an appliance and not use a PC base system. I've not been able to find many appliances. Any help, comments welcomed.
Company tends to not train. I know this is frowned upon, but it's how it is.
From what you say I think by resorces do you mean manuals ? if so contact the maker same goes for the VM . As to a non PC based VM, dream on. VM is computor based, some maker package the PC in a box and leave the screen off and other use ram disks but these are for V small . Unless the comany is looking to spend money you got what you got just RTM and see how long it lasts
The most important thing. What size is your present VM and what's wrong with it?
Appliance VM's eith come in Flash Ram or Laptop HD variants, depending on number of ports and hours. It still mostly looks like a computer because it is :-)
I would imagine the reasons for wanting to change out VM would be for:
We've got the manuals. Our department has no education or experience with the technology. Searching through the web is producing mostly links to VoIP. I was hoping to locate resources for older PBXs. A place to get familier with the technology.
Our current VM is Activevoice with 16 ports. Its running on OS2. The deparment that currently manages the PBX and VMail proposed of replacing the system with AVST Call Express. We assume reponsibility of the systems May 1st. So we have a little bit of time, but due to no prior experience or education with VM we are trying to find as much information as quickly as we can. So all comments suggestions are welcomed.
Only my (sometimes not-so-humble) opinion, but if cost is no object and reliability is tantamount, you could do a lot worse than an OCTEL system from Avaya. That is, providing you can find one. I don't even know if the Octel Overture-250 is still being manufactured, but at one time it and it's big brother, the Octel Overture-350 were the industry standard premier voice mail systems by which all others were compared. At one time you either had an Octel system or wished you did. They are *NOT* pc-based. This is commercial, carrier-class voice mail. Somewhere I once read that their disk drives are rated for some really absurd number like 250,000 hours (28 years).
These th>On 3 Feb 2005 15:26:45 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote: >
We have Call Express, and it misbehaves consistantly despite the best efforts of the (only) tech available in the 25th largest metro area in the nation.
Training is not available, despite multiple requests, and actually having obtained & confirmed a price and then written a PO for it. We've even offered to drive to their HQ in the Seattle area, 3 hours away... no dice.
The Call Express software has changed hands at least twice since it was written (AVT to Captaris to AVST), so the chances of anyone at AVST (the current owner) still being there from the original development team are low.
The user documentation is scanty, and does not describe its functionality or how to deal with problems well at all. Just peruse the history of this newsgroup at
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you will find multple Call Express users with unresolved problems.
Look at Asterisk, an open-source PABX platform with VM.
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If you can have it configured to serve as an automated attendand and voice mail for your existing PABX systems, you would have a _very_ cost-effective system, with multiple support vendors available, and documentation at least an order of magnitude better than our Call Express has shown us.
Everything nowadays is going to be PC-based, in one way or another. The hardware may not look like a PC, may be in a style-free telco-like grey sheet metal cabinet, but it's a PC underneath all the ugly.
However, being Windows-free could be a _very_ good idea, as the current code base of Windows, written with Microsoft's preferred languages, will be very vulnerable to exploitation, as Dr. Jerry Pournelle has pointed out on numerous occasions, as those languages don't type well and are very vulnerable to buffer overflow and similar exploits. Linux code, on the other hand, is much more stable, and much harder to hack.
-- John Bartley K7AAY
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post quad-ROT-13 encrypted; reading it violates the DMCA. "We're not living in a simulation. We're living in a collaborative SF novel... and now, of course, it's Philip K. Dick's turn. In a back room somewhere, Vernor Vinge and George Orwell are currently arguing about who gets to take over in 2025." (Ross Smith)
Thanks for all the replys. This has been very helpful.
We are not set on replaceing Active Voice. The current department has already proposed replacing the system with Call Express. We can stop this if we need to.
The brickmail system looks interesting. Don't think we can afford Octel.
Your right the PBX Phone post was an after thought and I posted before I realized it. I agree 3 months is too short to become adequately familiar with PBX and VMail technologies. The proposal to change out the VMail system is from the current department. The current department relies completely on their vendor for recommendations and solutions. We don't have any maintenance contracts for either the PBX or the Vmail. The Vendor does time and materials for us. I'm not against the vendor, just want to make sure the right decisions are being made. I'm the one that's will be working with it.
My hope from the original post was: Find resources for analog PBX systems instead of VoIP or if VoIP should be considered. Find VMail appliances instead of PC based systems. Find out if we really needed to replace the Active Voice system with Call Express.
Three months is short. If I can figure out if we need to replace or upgrade Active Voice and if the PBX is OK, then I will have time learn the systems. I mentioned the company doesn't train. They do train, but like for you to work with it at least 6 months. In 6 months I should have a good grasp on both technologies and then I should be able to pick conferences and or training.
I've been surprised by the amount of replies this post received and appreciate the responses.
This thread has been interesting to follow. You started asking for a voice mail replacement for your 16 port OS/2 box and moved into telephones.
At least you posed your questions in the right group.
There must be a "rest of the story", but you don't have enough time to learn a NEAX system in 3 months unless you're really good.
Third party phones for specific phone systems went out with the 1A2 key system, when a Western Electric phone was compatible with a Stromber and ITT phone. The only other attempt that I can recall was Northcom's 1A3 for the TIE ModKey/Delphi/Meritor systems. We do have a souce called the secondary market for usedrefurbished equipment. An example, the NEC ETW/ET2 16 product would sell for about $150 and the DTU 32D for about $200.
You must have a relatively harsh environment if you are destroying more than a couple of phones a year. I have motels that don't even do that.
Back to the voice mail. Let's put a number to a product. Four ports of VM with Unified Messaging (VM to e-mail), Speech Recognition, and SMDI (serial port for commands from the PBX to the VM) start at about $6K Each additional 4 ports is about $1500. Round numbers, about 10K for a 16 port replacement system installed at your site. Remove Speech Reco and you save about a grand.
The point is, all of these questions can be answered on the Internet, but it doesn't give you a sense of the feasability of the project. Your NEC vendor should be involved unless you plan on making a complete break. Then you need to find a source for parts and repairs. Keep in mind that anything you do to the switch, outside of changing VM and replacing phones will void any maintenance agreement you have with your present vendor and it may irritate NEC America.
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