atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Shoretel Telephones & Systems Shoretel

Gabriel,
Please start a new topic post for your question.
Hi-jacking a year old post with a new query causes problems for future users using the search function.

Welcome to the board.
Mark

We are a Shoretel dealer, it has some short cummings. The Mitel Voip system is much more powerful, it will and can do anything.
The shoretel in my opinion is a basic VOIP system.
The main problem of shoretel is, it is only as reliable as the windows operating system it is running on. suseptable to virus's and everything a windows based product can get.
Mitel is linux based, very stable.
The shortel teleworker phones work like ****.
Mitels, with no VPN they sound awesome.
Mitel is more expesive to maintain because of the complexity.
Shortel is very easy to maintain and IT guys will love it, If you want a basic VOIP system and you want to maintain it yourself. I think it is a good choice.

This is the only advantage of the shoretel system over another product

Editted for language content.

go Hybrid, inhouse should not be on voip period...

Only when you network to off site should you be using Voip

Toshiba, Avaya, panasonic

found this pic on another thread

I only see Cisco IP Phones in the photo. Not Shoretel

jvc57 had questions about ShoreTel. My experience with ShoreTel:

You'll see the history in this thread: Our 1st ShoreTel system installed May 2005. We purchase the hardware, I install 'em all. We are an end-user, not a Partner.

As of June 1 2007, ShoreTel statistics:
32 Sites are now ShoreTel. 4 of these sites are purely for Nortel interfacing. (We take care of 60 sites, overall)
5-6 more sites are due to be ShoreTel by Q4 2007 (including 2 of the 4 Nortel interface sites above)
70 ShoreTel switches are installed (ShoreTel switches, not LAN switches)
772 Extensions
547 Mailboxes (meaning ~225 devices not used by the typical every-day user. fax machines, lobby phones, cordless, etc)
1 HQ Server
2 Distributed Servers
We are in full license compliance

We have ShoreTel in 4 states
We are now a combination of ppp and MPLS circuits -- a big step to take over the last couple of years (remember Frame Relay, and frame of other flavors?)

We use Cisco routers, IOS release 12.1 or better for VoIP
We use some HP Procurve, mostly Adtran Netvanta PoE switches for VoIP
We use battery-backup at all VoIP sites (and nearly all sites, everywhere). PoE switches and battery backup means ShoreTel phones keep working during power outages
We use the ShoreTel IP530 (now discontinued) and IP560 telephones

Traffic May 1 to June 1, 2007
Total calls in the ShoreTel system to outside trunks 236,994
(Inbound 122,781, Outbound 114,213)
Total calls in the ShoreTel system that traveled over the WAN 38,714. Vast majority will be extension-to-extension
(Until we can find that great proactive and/or real-time network analyzing tool (that's affordable, and works), I am trying to be gentle on the WAN -- could allow a full Least Cost Routing to take full advantage of the WAN, afraid of overload -- don't have the time to monitor closely. May take baby steps one day, when (if) I have time to experiment)

By and large, I find our users love this system, and they spread the word. As I travel about our various locations, more and more people are exicted, aniticipating the day that they can be on this system

Trouble history
Most voice-quality troubles are Wan-based, some LAN-based, very few are ShoreTel hardware-based or ShoreTel software-based. (I think I could count on one hand the times I have had to call out for ShoreTel help)
I try to reboot all servers once per month to prevent trouble. Sometimes I'm not timely enough, strange troubles happen. Reboot fixes quickly. Not heavenly, but there are worse things happen in the world.
No real complaints. Does take closer watching of the network to keep voice happy, bad if you don't have in-house expertise, IMO. Not scary, new. Learning curve can be high for us old phone guys. Not insurmountable. Worth learning.

"I try to reboot all servers once per month to prevent trouble."

Now that pretty much sums it up


Walter

Thanks for the update RoyB. Sounds like it's working well for your needs. Shoretel is one of the few IP systems I haven't played with yet.

I agree, walterv, but whadayagonna do? seems most everybody's servers run on MS, it's not just a ShoreTel thing. I do my share of cussing Mr. Gates and crew, too. I don't have the options of trying other OS products that some may have. not sure I would want to get too far off the main stream, though, even with the known trouble areas. on the "bleeding edge" can be a scary place.

regards
royb

One of the pluses to the shoretel is that if the server goes down the only thing that goes down is the VM. All voice calls will process still just no voicemail until the Server comes back up.