Nortel announced it would cease operations in June of 2009. Following
Nortel’s Bankruptcy filing the companies’ holdings were acquired by Avaya,
Inc. In 2013, Avaya announced the “End of Life” for
all enterprise communications equipment purchased during the Nortel bankruptcy.
The repercussions may be severe on your businesses telecom operations, and
expenses.
Prudent IT Managers and Network Administrators across the
country are beginning the process of migrating their telecommunications
platforms away from their Nortel infrastructures. With a host of new technologies and products delivering
more feature-enriched applications, Managers and Admins are looking to Fusion
Communications for help to find the best equipment for the lowest price.
How Has Telecommunications Evolved Since I Bought My Nortel System?
Enterprises today have greater access to new technology due to
the nature of evolving technologies, including telecommunications technology. From analog and switched key systems to
technologies such as T1 PRI’s and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for various
hybrid and hosted Voice Over IP (VoIP), the telecommunications industry has a
variety of new technologies to address today’s business challenges and
requirements.
Initially, analog solutions such as Nortel’s Key Telephone Systems
were an Enterprises only option. Based on analog copper phone line delivery these
Key Systems relied on mechanical switches and wiring that went directly from a
central office to the corporate infrastructure.
Key telephone systems were commonplace from the late 1950’s
through the mid 1980’s. Manufacturers
such as Inter-Tel began integrating circuits into phone systems, making them
less expensive and paving the way for the Private Branch Exchange (PBX). New
features and functionality such as Caller ID, Speed-Dialing, and other
Enterprise Applications became possible.
Analog Centrex is a
PBX-like phone service dating back to the 1960s. The service was run by
equipment managed at the exchange site run by the phone company, with analog
phone lines serving as the delivery method. Soon, switchboards were replaced by
control consoles and newer types of switches were invented. In the late ‘60s,
Bell Labs took over Centrex development while similar services were soon
offered. The Integrated Business Network from Nortel, then known as Northern
Electric, was one of those. While still in existence, Centrex lines have steady
declined in use; there were fewer than 11 million by 2008.
As part of the analog-to-digital evolution, the next step became
the Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which supports 24 digital signal paths and
are typically delivered via a . Businesses often use PRI services to run their
VoIP systems. These, in turn, have promoted the Internet as the primary medium
for telecommunications. This is where Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has
come into play, allowing communication sessions to be managed over the
Internet, cellular networks, or private data networks within the enterprise.
T1 lines are ideal for digital communications in businesses with
high call volumes, such as enterprises, government agencies, internet access
providers, or universities. T1 lines are
often associated with high speed Internet.
In today’s environment, although T1’s are still an excellent delivery
method for voice services, other methods of internet and data delivery
including cable, Ethernet over Copper (EOC) and Fiber are quickly overtaking T1’s
as the preferred connectivity for the increased data consumption Enterprises
today are experiencing.
How Does New Technology Impact
My Cost?
Using a PRI circuit or other connectivity method can in fact
reduce costs for the savvy Enterprises of today’s market.. Plain Old Telephone
Service (POTS) analog lines vary in cost, but the number needed combined with
fees and taxes leads to exorbitant expenses. Depending on your company’s
location, there may be nothing you can do to bring down that cost. Incorporating
a PRI into your existing network eliminates charges from using traditional
lines and delivers long distance service digitally Installing a new system may
be the only way to lower the ultimate operating costs.
Is Sticking With My Nortel
System the Best Decision I Could Make For My Company?
You might still be tempted to use Nortel products, despite
service being discontinued. You likely
own your Nortel equipment outright, making this seem like an attractive option
to keep operating expenses low. You may
be familiar with your system and adverse to the idea of having to learn and
train your staff on a new technology.
Like all equipment, use and time begin to exact a toll on the
hardware, ultimately resulting in failures. If your Nortel phone system goes
down it requires a “keycode” to get the system up and running again. With the
“End of Life” of Nortel products, the company’s original keycode retrieval
system was phased out and is no longer accessible to Nortel users.
As we get farther away from Nortel’s “End of Life” announcement
there is a greater scarcity both of parts available to replace components of
your system, as well as companies capable of performing the necessary
maintenance. Any work offered by these
companies will not be warrantied as there is no longer any manufacturer
warranty on parts.
What would a single day of your phone system going down mean to
your business? How much revenue would
your organization lose?
What Can I Do to Be Proactive?
To avoid downtime associated with a broken down telephone system
with nothing to fix it with, now is the time to act. It is important,
therefore, to either upgrade the system or replace it entirely. This will
eliminate the risks of lengthy downtime and disruptions. Leaders in the
enterprise telecommunications market currently offer cutting-edge products,
even cloud-based telephone infrastructure, which save on cost and increase efficiency.
Many current systems do not require a keycode to operate as does
the Nortel system you now have in place.
You will not have to worry about misplacing it, nor require a new one should
something go awry. Any means to simplify things and avoid disruptions in
service are good for the organization.
Speak with a qualified telecommunications provider, such as
Fusion Communications, in your local market.
The best of these providers carry multiple manufacturers’ product lines
covering a breadth of solutions including on premise, hybrid, virtualized,
hosted VoIP and other technologies that may deliver a greater yield to your
organizations productivity and bottom-line.
