AudioCodes Mediant Enterprise Session Border Controllers (E-SBCs) vs. Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)

The E-SBC works well in situations where you are working with multiple carriers and/or multiple phone systems and need to route either by IP, sender info or inbound phone numbers.

I find that companies that require faxing to go through the E-SBC seem to be a little less stable than competitor devices.

Incentivized

Cisco Unified Communications Manager is suited for medium to large customers who are in search for a solid call control platform with added security in mind. Cisco Unified Communications Manager also supports receptions, small groups and also a mini contact center type of set up with its Hunt Group, Pick up Group and call queuing facilities and also with set up of music on hold function while calls queuing.

Incentivized

• different sip trunk profiles for each provider
• secure tls connection to for Microsoft Direct Routing
• high availability on each SBC and also on Azure or AWS

Incentivized

• This solution is extremely stable and has been running in our environment for several years without (unscheduled) downtime.
• The ability to have voicemails automatically sent as an email message is extremely helpful in helping us to keep in touch while away from the desk.
• The Call Manager provides us very granular settings to route our calls as we want.

Incentivized

• I believe the help files need to have more information about why certain options should be used rather than just a list of possible choices. Some choices obviously require a wealth of information or experience, but having just a bit more info in the help file would save research time.
• I'd like to see a user side option to be able to ping and trace route testing without having to be in another admin interface.
• The message log function is great for watching SIP packets stream but needs more options for pausing to capture when there are a lot of calls coming through.
• In my opinion, the route tables & configurations for proxies and groups need some massaging. The normal config options could be placed on one screen and then have a choice to go to "extended" mode for less-used items. This would make implementation faster as there are so many options now that it can be hard to see the few that are needed for general configuration.
• I would love to see a screen that would allow the formation of a "SIP Ladder" where you could enter a source and/or destination IP and have the gateway show you the communication rather than pouring through logs. This is something that various carriers and even Wireshark are doing now but it would be great to have this option from the gateway's perspective as it would make it easier to compare with the outside traffic diagrams without having a senior network tech having to help.

Incentivized

• Administration web page is little bit hard to understand at the beginning specially if you are not familiar with naming convention and GU Interfaces.
• Call Detail Record interface is fine but would be desirable to include more options that fit organization needs in terms of reporting purposes.
• Self Care Portal interface could be more useful to the end user if it includes options to manage some features without administrators involving.

Incentivized

We have been using this product for 20+ years and will continue too. This is a great product and new features are always coming out.

Incentivized

The usability part of Cisco Unified Communications Manager is very much simple from a usability point of view. Day-to-day Move Add Change Delete (MACD) can be performed by the administrators very easily with simple training. From the initial deployment point of view, some of the thing can be improved to simplify the process.

CUCM is supported by most third-party vendors for related products, so it makes finding solutions to specific needs easy. Also Cisco TAC is very knowledgeable, and we have never run into a problem they have not been able to resolve. Usually they are resolved without the need to escalate tickers either.

Incentivized

This was the first phone system we implemented that could span multiple locations. We were very satisfied once fully implemented

Incentivized

AudioCodes is easier to implement and has a better support for Microsoft Teams Direct Routing implementation.

Incentivized

We have been a Cisco based shop and have looked at other cloud voice options such as MS Teams pbx, and others, but ultimately, the features, endpoints, and reliability of Cisco has been the common factor in staying with them as our voice provider. Their integrations, room systems, and hybrid design allows for us to be flexible and keep a high up time vs reliance on 100% cloud.

Incentivized

• Positive - My company has been able to retain business due to the low cost of the AudioCodes devices when compared to the other brands that some customers purchase through other vendors.
• Positive - RMA is easy when it appears a card or module might be at issue, AudioCodes support is speedy to replace which grows customer confidence.
• The ability to order, assemble, configure and ship multiple units to replace aged or failing gateways allowed us to impress the customer and gain more business.
• The reliability of the devices with very lengthy up-time and little to no reboots has impressed customers greatly.

Incentivized

• Communication and collaboration - Our offices are able to communicate both internally and externally due to this system.
• Down time - Struggles with CUCM has caused a lot of down time due to the instability of the system.
• High Costs - the cost of both the license and the maintenance was much higher than other systems.

Incentivized