atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Best system for a teaching environment?

Iwatsu ! Omega 2,3,4 . WAPITA ! :shrug:

The Inter-Tel Axxess is most likely way to complex and expensive for what you're wanting to do. On the other hand, there are a lot of old Inter-Tel Premiers (1224s or 2460s) out there that can be had for a song. As Marv mentioned what you're really wanting to do is deal with hunt groups etc. I will mention that those systems are going to be CLI, but are very good to cut your teeth on.

I think Merritt has some experience with these. You might ask him when you two talk. Good luck.

When I went through the apprenticeship program 15years ago and went to NAIT tech college in Edmonton,they had a old crossbar switch. You could follow your call through the switch and see parts move. They had a old NEC electra with the fuses on the ends of the cards.

Don't know where they get there info from. Around here Nortel is the most popular by 2 to 1 over any over brand.

The firm is called Infotech, and they trach all the ports for this stuff. It's interesting when I goto a meeting and some Avaya or Nortal guy tells him THEY are #1...then I bring the facts.

BTW, Toshiba is probably going to break into #3 in the next year.

If NEC happens to be outselling everyone this year, good for them. Its a horse race sometimes and different brands jockey for position and shift the first place. The sexy brand of the month should way little, in my opinion, in what to teach techs that are going out into the real world. It is what is out there that I think may be of real value. And if you go to 100 businesses randomly in the US, I would guess you would find at least 30-40% nationwide have either Avaya/AT&T or Nortel. These are exisiting businesses. Just a random sampling. (I did in my market and AT&T alone was pinging 50%.. regardless of what Vodiva or NEC or whomever was doing this quarter).

Again chances are, your studnets will probably work on Nortel and Avaya key systems. New techs may work on many others, but those two brands are keepers... Techs will not go wrong with a working knowledge of them, imho. Brian

Not to name drop , but Shoretel , Nortel & Mitel are taking alot of the Voip customers . They all work extremely well if the customer listens and follows your Network recommendations . If they don't they end up with a "POS" and a bad taste in their mouth for Convergent Technolgy ! IMHO .

I have not formed an opinion on CCM yet . I have yet to figure out how they could easily supply more that 100 Analog ports . Since they have no TDM peripherals to offer the customer .

Let's all remember that this particualr question was angled at a telecom frim in Canada...not the US. Perhaps systems are different up there, maybe more Nortel than AT&T/Avaya. Whatever the case it seems like the general concensus is that it would be best to teach fundamentals and then focus on one or two different systems; perhaps Nortel and NEC just to get a good foundation on two systems that are widely distibuted.

Steve