[LINK] Asterisk Linux PABX

[Dassa]

|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: link-bounces at anu.edu.au
|> [mailto:link-bounces at anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of r.polanskis at uws.edu.au
|> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 8:24 PM
|> To: rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au
|> Cc: Link
|> Subject: Re: [LINK] Asterisk Linux PABX
|>
|> On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
|>
|> > For eg:
|> > - if you own the PABX already, why replace it? These things live a
|> > very long time. In particular, the IT life cycle is much,
|> much shorter
|> > than the PABX cycle ... the hosting hardware may go out of
|> > manufacturer support in five years. Some PABX vendors can
|> still run
|> > last week's software revision on systems launched in 1991 or 1992.
|>
|> It's also a question of scalability.  A PABX is often driven
|> by an embedded OS and relies on various hardware to do it's
|> switching.
|>
|> Then there is the question of call accounting, timing the
|> call and being able to do things like conferencing and party
|> line linkups
|> and so on.   A $10000 solution may well be able to all the above
|> but is it going to be able handle the peaks loads which could
|> even mean 5,000 calls an hour of varying duration?   I don't think
|> linux on the X86 platform can scale like that without the
|> beefing up of the architecture to where the TCO becomes
|> almost equivalent to a hardware solution with a software
|> control interface.
|>
|> Then, where are all the OSS billing systems?
|>
|> Are you going to trust the contractors who currently come
|> out and do your PABX work to manage OK on the software based systems?
|>
|> What happens if the computer crashes (and it will)?   PABX
|> systems rarely have critical "catch fire" situations and
|> their simplicity actually protects them from the worst case
|> scenarios as opposed to an evil X86 box that has all sorts
|> of moving, volatile components.

I've seen $20-30,000 PABX systems that haven't worked correctly since they
were installed.  Voice Mail systems dropping mail boxes for unknown reasons,
software upgrades to resolve issues that couldn't be explained etc etc.
This is for some well known and respected brands and maintenance done
through repected companies.  Most I've seen also needed a dedicated PC for
configuration.  Some another PC for Voice Mail or had hard drives on the
PABX cards.  Basically just special built systems that don't last any longer
than a PC.

They aren't more simple than a PC, if anything, they are more complicated
and have more moving parts than a PC.

I'm not saying an Open Source solution would suit the large end of town but
for a business with up to a 1,000 extensions, I certainly believe it would
be cost effective and reliable.

Darryl (Dassa) Lynch