Software Description: Network Configuration Store is a free, open source application for network administrators, designed to automatically backup, revision and audit the configuration from Cisco IOS-based routers and switches. Download: Advanced Contact Manager Professional Shareware. It can call any other SIP soft phone (for free charge) or any landline or mobile number via your. -Remote Desktop and file transfer over VoIP (compatible with any SIP server). Basic configuration of WinTariff already includes huge database concerning.
Don't use PBXtra. The tech support is abhorrent and even though the initial system price is lower, they make up for it on the other side in required support agreements and 'setup' fees for new equipment ($45/phone for work that takes less than 30 mins). Access to the system's control panel is external to your network and sensitive data and configuration files are sent back and forth every time a page is loaded making the load times horribly slow, even on our 10/10Mbps optical connection. Although it has been a generally reliable solution, I would not recommend it, as I find that the hidden costs and slow control panel reek of an immature company.
Try again in a few years, if you're considering it. If you need an inexpensive solution, build your own, but avoid TrixBox, as it's just PBXtra under the hood. Also, they only guarantee their product under a certain set of conditions which saw us spending $1000 on a new corporate firewall, which although needed, was not budgeted for this year, along with several other of their hidden charges. We are a Shoretel Dealer in Southern California. We estimate a run of the mill Shoretel system goes for about $1,000.00 per station.
This usually includes EVERYTHING needed to make that phone work (POE switches, actual phone equipment, etc.) and train the users. Shoretel is the best VOIP system for the money, hands down! Cisco costs way more to maintain and is much more complex (gotta have a CCIE in the mix). Buy a small Cisco and you have to forklift upgrade to grow past 50 phones. Nortel, Avaya and the likes all have a severe legacy background that doesn't transfer well to an all IP environment. Televantage, and the other Server-based systems have a major achilles heel.
The TOTAL reliance on a windows-based server. Most Asterik-based systems are one-box wonders and don't do well in a multi site environment and/or are not well supported and aren't end-to-end solutions (don't make the phones, etc) leaving you high and dry on support and compatibility with required third party hardware. Shoretel lets you start small and scales over 10,000 phones ALL ON THE SAME EQUIPMENT!!! It is not part of the network so can use LAN equipement from many different vendors. Not just Cisco or 3COM or Nortel, etc. We commonly deploy on Linksys Business Class POE switches. Single image database means you manage your entire organization from one Web interface and the data is replicated to every piece of ShoreTel equipment automatically.
![Shoretel Ip Phone Configuration File - Free Software And Shareware Shoretel Ip Phone Configuration File - Free Software And Shareware](https://cdn.guru99.com/images/asp-net/061516_0856_InsertUpdat12.png)
Server can go down and all call routing features still operate! N+1 redundant so you can add just one more Shoregear switch to create redundancy for all other switches at a site. New 8.0 version is all native SIP and supports video desktop integration, instant messaging and Microsoft OCS & Exchange 2008 integration. We can help you with anything you need as it relates to VOIP.
If you're in SoCal, even better. I've used Zultys quite a lot, a true SIP phone system, with support for Zultys, Aastra, Cisco and Polycom phones out of the box, and will support most SIP phones with a little configuration.
It's modular and can support small installations (5 phones) upto large installations of 8000 phones. Very easy to use and administer. Has built in Call Centre capability, ACD, Voicemail all the things you'd expect from a high functionality phone system, and it's based on a highly stable Linux operating system. Although still in the testing phase we are looking at a custom solution based on OpenSER, PgSQL, MySQL, Apache and Radius for call accounting. Its not too tricky my collegue Kyle Lear would be happy to tell you more about what it is we have done.
OpenSER being the core SIP server, PgSQL for basic accounting, MySQL for user database, Apache for administration and presence, and finaly radius for total call accounting. Pretty much the setup used in any good company such as Skype etc. I have been involved with three entirely different client deployments, and I would say they all were very effective each with their own flavor of management utilities, client add-ons, etc. The solutions were Cisco, Avaya and Shoretel.
Also I have had some experience with Intertel, but very limited. For an environment that is not going to grow exponentially in terms of staffing, I would have to favor the Shoretel system for both cost effectiveness, ease of implementation and ease of use. The Shoretel system has some great creature features included, and we added a fax server which works great. Also need to note that I deployed Shoretel in a thin-client environment with wyse terminals as the hosts connected to the phones, and providing the integrated communicator software.
Now shoretel told me they didn't support this type of configuration, however we had no issues at all deploying it and using it effectively. I am sure that the same can be said about the Avaya, Cisco and Mitel systems, however I have no direct experience with those in this kind of deployment.
My overall cost for deployment of 17 phones was just under 16K - now this may seem like a lot per phone, but we also figured the cost per client after that number is about $300 per, so the cost per host goes down significantly, and I own the equipment and am able to manage it without having to hire a rhoads scholar for support. I'm sure Shoretels model will change someday, but I don't have them beating down my door trying to upsell me on something new for my system - another feature I am very pleased with. We deployed the Sphericall VoIP system in Nov 08. It's a pure VoIP system based it runs on Win 2003 server. They were bought by NEC shortly after. We paid about $30K for 25 lines. The softphone is free and easy to use, License runs at roughly $250 per after that.
You get DiD, unlimited voice mail that integrate with Exchange 2003 (That was in the 30K by the way). It does both MGCP and SIP. We are using Polycom phones right now. I liek the system, pretty straight forward to administrer and stable, We've had no outage since we got it, quality of sound is great.
It's easy to do elaborate forwarding conditions, voice promts and Music on Hold. I had looked at Communigate, it's a open source completely integrated communication suite with voice, mail and fax but I did not have the time and expertise to deploy it, the consulting fees would have made it about the same price as the sphericall system. I have been involved in telecom for about 20 years now and I've been through the evolution of the different systems from 1A2 systems to Key systems to Legacy PBX and on into the VoIP architecture. The most dependable, easiest to manage, easiest to implement, best bang-for-the-buck system I've ever worked with is definitely the Shoretel system. Their systems have the best architecture to prevent single point of failure, and the tech support from the manufacturer is the best of any of the equipment manufacturers I've ever worked with be it phone systems, switches, routers, server and p.c. Manufacturers, etc. Good luck to you in this endeavor.
We have been a Mitel user for years with excellent support from our local dealer as well as Mitel Corp. When needed (which is seldom). We have 5 PBXs supporting about 300 stations including some remote workers and handle 95+% of system administration ourselves (2 primary techs-less than 25% of their time), with local support only needed for major upgrades, change of carrier, etc. We have found their PBX solutions (both digital and IP-based) to be feature-rich and of the highest quality.
Recently, in preparation for upgrading our main office from a purely digital to a hybrid IP/digital solution, we replaced approximately 75 digital sets which had been in service since the early 1990s. Mitel also has an extensive offering of enhanced features developed either in-house or in close partnership with third party vendors to cover virtually every business requirement, such as Unified Communications, Mobile Extension (twinning your desk phone to a mobile device for call handling), teleworker solutions, and soft and hard phones. They are partnered with Sun Microsystems in green computing efforts, Microsoft for UC, HP ProCurve and Foundry for networking solutions, and many more.
And as stated in previous posts, pricing is quite reasonable based on the value and features you receive. If you want a good experience, we would highly recomend VoIP Center as your SIP provider. They deliver enterprise level DID and VN access for a reasonable price.
Most importantly, the entire infrastructure of your network and network security is tanamount to the VoIP product you choose. We use trixbox and have found that the system is stable, voice quality is dependent on the quality of the handsets used as well. I like the Polycom 601 that is on my dsk but we have also deployed the Linksys SPA 942 at locations that do not need to use a high quality speakerphone. We also have utilized the Linksys 901 in service areas as well as some older standard telephones. Alway's remember that the choice of your VoIP telephone service is paramount in getting the most for your hardware!
It doesn’t come up often but occasionally you’ll find your phones aren’t getting the right information from your network’s time server. Some partners will set up the ShoreTel server as the SNTP server for your phones.
I’ve been told this isn’t great practice anymore. Your network may not be set up in a way that makes using DHCP to pass your phones settings to them possible. This means you have to manually place all your settings in each phone right? Some settings that are the same across all phones can be assigned with those text files on your ShoreTel FTP server. One of those settings is which SNTP Server to use. You have to do this for each specific model of phone you use. I’ll show how to do this for a 230 phone and then share how to figure out which file goes to which kind of phone.
I believe this can be done for a specific phone as well, but newer versions of ShoreTel may have changed this. Fair warning. You can mess some settings up if you get this wrong. It’s not a bad idea to back up your C: inetpub ftp root directory. Step 1 – Log Into your ShoreTel server. Step 2 – Open the folder C: inetpub ftproot – Back this folder up. Step 3 – Look for a text file called “sevcustom.txt” Step 4 – Add the line:” SntpServer IP Address of NTP Server” without the quotes.
The IP address of the NTP server can be the IP address of your primary domain controller, or theoretically an online NTP server, but this is not ideal. Step 5 – Save the file. Step 6 – Reset a 230 phone and see if it doesn’t pick up the correct time server now.
Step 7 – If it does, it’s a simple matter of resetting all the 230 phones on the network. The first two or three numbers or letters of the custom.txt file is the model number of a phone. Flip a ShoreTel phone over and look at the barcode on the back. Above the barcode should read “IP TELEPHONE MODEL xxx”. The xxx part is the model of the phone. The 230’s say SEV, 560’s will say S6 and so forth and so on.
You could always just add the line to each custom file. Another thing to look out for is in the shorexxx.txt text files. There should be a line that says ‘Include “xxxcustom.txt”‘.
If it isn’t there, add it. You can also change this to another global custom text file with your edits. Update – You can also name the files with the MAC address of a phone to put specific settings on individual phones. The text file needs to be named shorexxxxxxxxxxxx.txt where the xx’s are the MAC address of the phone. The MAC address is the long “serial number” on the back of the phone under the bar code.
Yeah, it’s also useful if you have a bunch of different networks with different DHCP capabilities. We had a site where there was basically just a plain little Linksys router running the whole thing. Just three computers and a couple of phones. It needed a different time server and a few other settings.
Got really annoying walking people through programming the phones after power outages, and other issues. This information is incredibly useful, not just with NTP settings. Glad we could help! Let me know if I can do anything else for you. Yeah, I have dealt with this problem.
It’s annoying, and it comes down to your individual situation. I’m guessing you had the SNTP server set either to the ShoreTel server, your Windows domain controller, or something like that, then they updated and now the VPN phones aren’t getting their time? Here’s a few things you can do that won’t add any real load to your network to solve this, hopefully. This is all stuff I’ve done to resolve this issue (sometimes all of these on one ShoreTel system). Sadly, they’re correct unless the VPN phones let you specify a time zone now, you’re stuck with a local NTP server option.
You do have some really easy solutions though. If they can use a time zone I’d talk the end user through configuring it manually on the phone.
If you can’t you can always use the shoremacaddress.txt trick to configure an SNTP server. Sometimes using an internet time server will work.
I’ve done this in the past and gotten the phones to get the correct time, because of their site assignment I’m assuming. Usually it won’t, and if you get anything it’s just going to be UTC time. Occasionally you can find a time server on the internet that gives out local time, but not often. We just set one up here locally for our customers who had this issue. If that’s not available, most routers can and do work as NTP servers so sometimes, without doing any changes to your local gateway you can just set the NTP server for that specific phone as the gateway for the local network it is on.
Other times you have to go turn that feature on. Even home grade routers have this option available, and Cisco business class routers can act as NTP servers either through the command line, or through one of the GUI interfaces. It’s not on by default with those. Assuming you have some strange equipment, you can ALWAYS get some open source software that will work as an NTP server.