atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Inter-Tel Telephones & Systems Inter-Tel Axxess Upgrade opinions

I am currently using Inter-Tel Axxess v. 9.002 and really would like to get some form of unified communications back. We had it about 7 years ago, but Inter-Tel dropped support beyond Office 2000.

I am back looking at it and have been proposed to upgrade to the Inter-Tel (Mitel) CS5000. We are not using VoIP and have no immediate need or it, but I know that is the future. We have no issues with the Axxess system and I am not a fan of upgrading just to upgrade, but the UM features of the CS5000 sound appealing.

Does anyone have experience with both systems? What are the pros and cons of migrating to the CS5000 over the Axxess? What about the support of cell phones (Blackberry, Android or WinMo) on the CS5000? I was told you could integrate various handsets to the system.

Thanks for any info you might have. Just trying to make an educated guess as to which way to go.

Jeff

The 5000 has proven to be a reliable system and is easy to support. Some thoughts:

1. The embedded voicemail on the 5000 does SMTP forwarding only, so it is not really 'unified'. However, you may have been quoted an external mail server that does do true UM. Please respond w\ the voicemail model name and I can clarify what you can expect.

2. You do not need to do VOIP w\ the 5000 as it supports all single-pair Inter-Tel digital keysets. You could do VOIP at any type in the future however and it does it quite well.

3. One major 'pro' of upgrading from an Axxess is an ongoing support and development commitment from Mitel that is not there for the Axxess. New versions and hardware are on the roadmap for the 5000 and there is cool stuff coming up. There is no roadmap for the Axxess.

4. The 5000 can ring your keyset and cell at the same time and you can switch in between them really easily. An admin can setup pretty comprehensive call routing rules for each user that allow for up to 2 external phone numbers and up to 3 internal extensions to ring at the same time or in a delayed fashion. Pretty nice.

5. The 5000 also can support SIP trunking, caller-id pass through, all the new Mitel IP sets and the new Mitel digital sets. There soon will be Office status integration and support for Mitel's desktop clients.

I would suggest waiting for version 4.0 It will be a new chassis design based on the look of the Mitel cabinets and will add some additional Mitel support the current version do not. I know our office installed it last week doing some bata testing and the certification test has been released so I would suspect it will be out pretty soon.
Randy

Thanks for the info. Looks like this could definitely be a good option to upgrade to. The quote is to replace my Axxess System with a CS5000 VoIP Platform and replace the current VPU with a new Enterprise Messaging Server. Hope this helps to provide a little more info.

When is Version 4 supposed to come out? Our lease agreement will allow for software updates, but it sounds like v.4 is a hardware update, correct?

Jeff

The EM server can do true UM by integrating w\ your email server via IMAP. Works well and there is no client :-).

Version 4 should be out by the end of next month. There is a new chassis due as well, but I am not clear that you will need the new chassis to support 4.0. You should get a years worth of software updates however.

I have just sent a request back to my salesman to see if our upgrade can wait for the new hardware. Unfortunately his quote is only valid until the 31st, so hopefully he will be able to get us version 4.

MVSpeed, Is the beta testing pretty stable? My rep just said that they are looking for beta testers.

I personally don't mind doing beta testing. Heck I have been running Windows 7 and Office 2010 from tech preview days! BUT...this is a business and I really can't afford to be down.

He also said the hardware would be upgradeable to version 4.

private message sent
I do want to say for other readers yes it is stable and if you are a shop beta might be a good idea..... for a customer ............ I wouldn't beta anything my lively hood was reliant on but that's just me

I have heard differently on the Enterprise Messaging. I hear that the EM is being phased out and the Mitel NuPoint will be replacing it. Mitel is currently out of Stock on New EM units. The NuPoint UM solution requires the MAS server and apparently is still does not work properly even though it was released a while a go.

Sorry to revive an old topic, but we have had nothing but trouble with the NuPoint UM integrating with our Mitel 5000 systems. Can anyone verify if the Enterprise Messaging is still available, and if it integrates better than the NuPoint? We have had our 5000's and the NuPoint for about 15 months now, and are ready to get rid of it. We had Axxess systems with a VPU before and never had any problems.

Just curious, does anyone know of a very experienced Inter-Tel/Mitel dealer in the Michigan area that would know these systems in and out, unlike the dealer we bought them from?

Version 5.0 for the Mitel 5000 supports full unified messaging. V5 is released this month.
The EM voicemail is all but gone now

Tim - Are you talking about the basic voicemail in the 5000? I don't think that would work for us because we have about 15 sites, about half on the 5000 and half still on the Axxess.

Our vendor just upgraded our NuPoint voicemail system and it made things worse, without fixing any of the integration problems we were having. We're on 3.2.4.54 for the 5000s though, I'm not sure if updating those would help.

About how many voicemail users do you have?

Also, what kind of problems are you having w\ the NuPoint?

We have about 400 voicemail boxes.

Some of our most important issues:
-MWI not working for unassociated mailboxes at all, not consistent for associated mailboxes
-Voicemail delivery is delayed randomly for different mailboxes (will show up hours or days later)
-Advanced Unified messaging (with MAPI gateway) does not consistently integrate with Exchange mailboxes. It works fine for some, works partially for others, and doesn't work at all of others.
-Phones don't show a count of new messages. They will show "1 new message" regardless of the amount in the mailbox.
-After last upgrade, skipping forward and backward (* and # keys) only works intermittently (DTMF problem?)

Those are just the higher-priority things off the top of my head, I could add to that list.

Hi, Yes basic voicemail on Mitel 5k will support UM also it can now expand upto 32 ports, if on a CS a ps1 is required to get to 32 ports.
Also as of V5 the basic VM will co-exist with a Nupoint. HX controller will need a PS1 if it has a high call rate.
Each Mitel 5K with PS1 supports max 250 mailboxes with UM. Without PS1 100 mailbox

What is the limit for mailboxes without UM? I'm wondering if we could have all 400 of our mailboxes at one site with basic voicemail, if only 20-30 use UM. Then we could either use the NuPoint for our applications or move them over to the BVM as well.

There is no set limit for mailboxes, storage space is the limiting factor. A 512MB flash allows around 80 hours,storage on a PS1 should not be an issue. The limits are for mailboxes with UM.

Although the new BVM and Nupoint can reside on the same system Mitel recomends using the Nupoint for VM storage and the BVM for STARS, CRAs Queue position and wait time only.

5.0 requires a 1 Gig card and recommends a 2 gig

I would go with no less than the 2 gig CF I am upgrading our office this week with the 2 gig at that point I can say how I feel about the 5.0 from the training it looks like it will add some nice features

Randy

How can you have a NuPoint and a bvm working at the same time. For EM I always had to turn off bvm in the phone system?

Spydre - EM on Axxess/Mitel here, 416 mailboxes across five office locations and about 25 remote users. Was a tad tricky to set up, but works. All mailboxes on main office's Axxess (v10), talking to one other US based Axxess and three Mitels, two in US, one in UK.

I miss the ole UM days where the player was integrated into Outlook and you could play messages over phone instead of being forced to have PC speakers. Too bad Inter-Tel got lazy and didn't want to keep up with MS Office releases. Now we are stuck with uh, 'sort-of' UM.