The Preston Blog

Avaya: The Update

A few weeks ago I wrote about a decision that we were struggling with at work concerning Avaya vs. Fonality for a new phone system. After weighing the costs and benefits, we ended up going with Avaya because it is a scalable solution that will serve our needs for years to come. That is not to say that the Fonality system (or Vodavi, another system we were considering) is not scalable, but I like the reputation that Avaya has and, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that every vendor compares themselves to Avaya.We have had the system for a couple of weeks and I am very happy with it so far. We are using an auto-attendant, which is nice because it makes sure that people are getting through to the department that they want to talk to. I especially like the fact that everybody in the company has their own voicemail - it sure makes it easier for each of us to keep in touch with important people.I think we are all getting used to the system, but it was definitely a necessary expense and I feel good about the system. I will say that on about 20% of the calls I have taken so far, the person on the other end kind of sounds robotic. However, nobody has complained about poor quality so I am guessing that it’s on our end only. This is a small price to pay for full PBX functionality from an inexpensive solution. In case you are wondering, IP Office (from Avaya) will run you about $10K-$20K for a 10-15 person setup depending on what features are important to you.

4 Comments

1. I am on the verge of the same decision. However I have to support 50 or so today, and about 150 in 2 yrs. So far from what I have seen, Fonality is the leader. Not just in price, which it is by a huge margain, but in functionality. The interface is awesome, and I and not restricted by the VPN requirement for field bases clients, as I am with Cisco and Avaya.

   As for the poor nature of the calls, I would call them back. Sounds like a QoS issue. In house your calls should be perfectly clear, if all the QoS is configured correctly.

   However, since this is such a big decision I will likely not choose Fonality unless the vendor can give me some sort of quality and uptime SLA.

   I would like to know how this system is working today as I have to make a decision in about a week.

   Comment by Nate Harris — October 26, 2005 @ 9:01 pm

2. Nate,

   Thanks for your comments. I should have explained a little more about our setup and the nature of the few problems we have had.

   First of all, we have two locations - it sounds like you have much more, but I’m sure your experience will be similar. The calls that we are having problems with seem to be between the two offices. We have 2 T1’s between each office (with broadband aggregators) so I didn’t think that bandwidth would be an issue - apparently it is, but it is definitely manageable. The quality of phone calls between locations is comparable to talking on a cell phone - not a big deal since it is internal communication.

   As far as the VPN requirement restrictions I am guessing that you are referring to softphone licenses - they can be quite expensive but with as many systems as you plan on purchasing I’m sure you can get a quantity discount. Keep in mind that these are concurrent user licenses so you can get five and as long as you have five people on the road at a time you should be fine. Also, I don’t know if this is an option or not, but you can take your full set on the road and, provided you have a broadband connection, still show up as a local user to others in the company - I thought this was pretty cool but a bit impractical for travel.

   Two things have blown me away with the Avaya system - first of all, if you care about having a wireless headset I would go with 4620SW IP phones - for $150 you can get a wireless plantronics headset that doesn’t require a lifter on the phone or anything - this has been hands down my favorite feature with this phone.

   The other feature I love is the ease of use with the administration interface. After spending a couple of months with this thing I swear we know the interface better than the guy who installed it - ease of use is very important to me because I don’t want to call a repairman for every little thing.

   All in all I am very happy with our decision to go with the Avaya. Let me know if there’s anything specific you would like to know more about.

   Preston

   Comment by admin — October 27, 2005 @ 8:17 am

3. You both should have gone with fonality. I am not a reseller nor do i work for them.

   Avaya is expensive, propriatary and basic.

   Fonality is inexpensive, open sourced and robust.

   You should have paid a consultant to do this research for you.

   Comment by voip guru — June 22, 2006 @ 2:48 pm

4. Thanks for the advice, voip guru - my main consideration point was not price but reliability - we have been very happy with our Avaya IP Office system so far and I am happy with our decision but perhaps I will have to try out fonality in the future and see how it stacks up for myself.

   Comment by admin — June 23, 2006 @ 1:45 pm

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