One of the Frequently Asked Questions of businesses that contact us is “when should I replace my phone system” followed by “how long will it last” and sometimes “what happens if it breaks”.
The accepted life of a phone system is around 8 years, usually because technology overtakes it and the system cannot be upgraded. There are many much older systems out there – some are old enough to vote… Presumably they are still fulfilling the needs of their owners. Obviously a system that old is only capable of switching calls and probably does not even have voicemail. On a system of that age the question of “what happens if (when) it breaks arises. When the faulty part is identified and assuming parts are available the wholesaler will give us several of them to try with the instruction to find one that works. In other words on a very old system any repair is best effort as the replacement parts probably won’t be in any better condition to the ones that failed.
When questionable reliability is combined with the amount of space an older system occupies, the power it consumes and the heat it generates this leads to the question of whether it should be replaced?
There are always exceptions and upgrade paths. For instance, if you had invested in an Avaya IP Office 500v2 in 2010 then it is possible to apply a software upgrade to make it functionally equivalent to a brand new system. The hardware appliance can also be replaced with a Server Edition either as a physical server or as a virtual machine to support up to 3000 extensions. If you have an older IP Office then it is possible to upgrade to the IP500v2 and migrate the licenses across but depending on the phones you have there may be some incompatibility with the current firmware. The IP Office is natively NBN compatible so there is no need to replace it with an “NBN compatible” phone system. Just buy the appropriate licenses and it is more than likely you will have the required hardware.
If you have a Nortel Business Communications Manager then your upgrade path is to an Avaya IP500v2. Simply by replacing the main unit equipped with the appropriate cards, you can run your existing digital phones that will be familiar to your staff yet have all the new functionality of the IP500v2. This is what companies like JB Hi Fi do. It saves a considerable amount of money over a full replacement.
Please contact us if you have any enquiries.
