atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Replacment for Executone 648

As the Phone guy at a large Long Island based law firm i have been asked to look into a VOIP or Hybrid replacement for our 10 year old Executone. I am looking for suggestions

Tell us about how many phones and lines you have so we can suggest something that fits your needs.

1) How many lines and phone extension do you have at this moment?

2) How much future growth do you need or not need for the system?

***Most important question 3) What is the application? What do you do; and what do you want the system to do for you?

4) Are there any special needs or wants for the new system?

5) If you are considering VOIP (internally) have you considered if your network can be used or does it also have to be upgraded etc?

These are just basic questions to start with..there are surely more.

Allow me to PUSH for a hybrid. VOIP isn't really 'there' yet and the hybrid will give you the best of both worlds. That said, any locally supported brand, esp. 'with good references', will serve you.
Not in any particular order: NEC, Panasonic, Mitel, Avaya/Nortel, Comdial, ESI, Isotec, and others that aren't mentioned because I'm 65. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) The major thing is local, RELIABLE, KNOWLEDGEABLE support. Try checking with your peers at other law firms.
Get references. Ask to see systems, that are being proposed, in operation. Don't hesitate to insist, it's your money and 'they' want it. Don't make it easy, make 'em work for it. Remember, it'll be your rep (& maybe job) on the line here, take your time!

OH...another important one!!! If the salesperson says "YES" to everything without explaining HOW or not saying they will get back to you on HOW after talking to a tech, a red flag needs to go up.

Ok off soap box now..LOL.

We have 350 phones. 2 pri from PAETEC 1 pri from Lightpath and 2 t-1s from lightpath. I have a 24 seat predictive dialer, call acounting and i record about 150 phones via the handset.

Okay, this is a stupid question, and it is none of my dang business, but why does a law firm need a predictive dialer?

Jim
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Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

We specialize in collection litigation. We actually make over 20,000 calls a day and leave 15000 messages. The other calls are transferred to collectors that negotiate debt settlements.

My IT guys tried to build a FreeSWITCH which is based on the Asterisk platform. After a few months of work it was decided that it would not work for our application. Personally I was dead against it and all VOIP solutions. My Executone switch has been up and running trouble free for over 10 years. Never down for more than the time it took to reset once or twice over its life, compared to the computer network that would have sporadic outages that could last from 30 minutes to an hour or longer. I am still not sold on VOIP which is why i am leaning toward a hybrid approach. The computer guys can have their toy and i can still manage a reliable phone system.

Big call center, predictive dialer, call recording – just like the old days!

As others have mentioned, there are numerous products that will work. I would look at updating or replacing the logger as well, and using digital interface rather than logger patches. It’s a lot more reliable, and really expands your options when searching for specific calls.

A single source vendor that can support the phones and logger can prevent finger-pointing if there are issues down the road.