Comment Re:A view from the industry (Score 2, Interesting) 140
I'm in the industry also, and I don't understand why Asterisk couldn't be an enterprise-grade application. Sensis here in Australia (one of the largest unified web/voice service centers in the country) runs on a proprietary soft PABX, which is a Windows-based solution. While the unified messaging capabilities and user interfaces are a bit more developed, the hardware on which they run is the same. It costs much less to build a fully redundant data server than it does a fully redundant proprietary voice server. I think it's a good solution for anyone willing to give it a shot.
What I don't understand is why people seem to lose perspective of their telephone maintenance when they start talking VOIP. Just because you change to an IP platform doesn't mean you can't still outsource maintenance to a company dedicated to keeping your voice systems up and running. Chances are if you pulled out your old PABX and had an experienced company install an Asterisk solution, you could pay roughly the same amount for 24x7 cover that you're already paying on your Nortel or Avaya switch.
I would like to know if any other telecomms CPE providers have considered Asterisk as a managed solution offering. Provide or partner with a data carrier for SLA'd data connections, use SIP handsets on the desktop, and locate the Asterisk server off-site. You could probably even think of it in terms of a server farm and tennant a certain amount of CPU cycles to smaller businesses. Consolidate voicemail hardware between companies, etc. With the proper carrier channels, you could offer relatively cheap call termination by placing POPs in key cities and bill as a monthly service.
Anyone out there doing this sort of thing?
What I don't understand is why people seem to lose perspective of their telephone maintenance when they start talking VOIP. Just because you change to an IP platform doesn't mean you can't still outsource maintenance to a company dedicated to keeping your voice systems up and running. Chances are if you pulled out your old PABX and had an experienced company install an Asterisk solution, you could pay roughly the same amount for 24x7 cover that you're already paying on your Nortel or Avaya switch.
I would like to know if any other telecomms CPE providers have considered Asterisk as a managed solution offering. Provide or partner with a data carrier for SLA'd data connections, use SIP handsets on the desktop, and locate the Asterisk server off-site. You could probably even think of it in terms of a server farm and tennant a certain amount of CPU cycles to smaller businesses. Consolidate voicemail hardware between companies, etc. With the proper carrier channels, you could offer relatively cheap call termination by placing POPs in key cities and bill as a monthly service.
Anyone out there doing this sort of thing?
