Avaya IP Office is a communications solution for small and medium-size businesses. It is available in the cloud, on premise or hybrid deployments are all supported with IP Office along with the ability to migrate from one to the other. The included Avaya Equinox experience provides a single app for voice, video, messaging, conferencing and calendar and keeps employees productive on any device, from any location.
$82
per user/per month
Kamailio SIP Server
Score 9.0 out of 10
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The Kamailio SIP Server, formerly known as OpenSER or SER, is an open source VoIP and communications platform.
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Webex Calling
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Webex Calling is Cisco’s flagship cloud calling solution with over 12 million users worldwide. It delivers an enterprise-grade calling experience that enables customers to replace PBX hardware with a cloud calling solution. Webex Calling's connectivity and collaboration experience includes calling, meetings, messaging, contact center, and integrated devices.
The best thing about Webex Calling is its quality and innovation, as they frequently add capabilities and features to the service without requiring additional payments. This isn't the case with Avaya or Microsoft. Furthermore, Cisco Webex Calling can now be integrated with …
So I haven't had one where it's not appropriate at all unless somebody was going pure cloud. Obviously, this is not a cloud product, but from an on-premise solution like the IP office is, we've sold it to companies that have five users and we've sold it to customers that have thousands of users. So it's very expandable, adjustable to be it's hybrid, so it's IP and digital mix capabilities. So that's a strong suit.
Kamailio SIP Server is very well suited if you want to secure your main servers; it can perfectly act as a proxy server and a gateway to your main server. It also does load balancing and call transfers easily based on the configurations done.
It seems quite able to handle the normal day to day voice call requirements quite well. Our previous Cisco phones had cameras that could do video calls, but if we need that we go to a Zoom session. Conference room use is not terribly convenient, although this might just be a case of us figuring out how to adapt the environment.
Centralization is key. If you want to have all of your facilities on one phone system, to help mitigate telecom costs this is the system for you. You purchase the necessary licensing (one time purchase) and the licenses stay with you as long as you stay on that platform!
Flexibility is fantastic. Whether you want to use the IP Office as a key system, or replace your existing partner system, or run as a PBX. This system will do it all, I was very impressed with the compatibility of the IP Office with legacy equipment. Have a Partner system? Not a problem. Have a Definity system? Not a problem!
Broad based technology. You can utilize CO trunks (POTS lines), ISDN/PRI, T1, SIP, etc.... What ever your carrier hands off to you the IP Office can integrate with. No need to work with a third party vendor to get your interface up and running. AVAYA is a one stop shop, and if you have an existing warranty, just upgrade your IPOSS information on the system and your new hardware is covered.
Internal calling can be done by searching user in directory or by dialing short code extensions for users. Pretty quick and easy to reach internal people.
Webex Calling integrated seamlessly with call recording solutions making it very useful for compliance call recording which is needed by customer service centres today.
Features like call forwarding, call transfer, conference, voice mail, etc are available.
User authorisation for different types of calls is available.
It provides basic call centre features as well so that companies requiring basic call centre features can use it within Webex Calling.
Rush for updates. At times an updated will fix one problem, and inadvertently create another. However with due diligence from your business partner (Tektivity) patches are tested before being rolled out in production environments.
Part itemization. If you purchase a new system, the power cord does not come with the unit, that is a separate part. Very minor in the grand scheme of things but as a reseller and a customer still somewhat annoying.
Large convoluted organization. As a user trying to navigate the AVAYA website, and track down information can be daunting. Even calling support can be challenging, you never know if your call will be routed to India, Brazil, or Denver. That is why the relationship with Tektivity is so important. You can leverage your business partner to get the answers you need so you can spend your time tackling issues that need your attention.
I think what it's doing is it is still the leader when it comes to being able to present calling platforms. And I mean I guess it's number one competitor from a software perspective is Microsoft Teams, Cisco is doing everything possible to provide open source to enable Microsoft and Cisco to work together, particularly when it comes to user room experiences so that no one is feeling like they're left alone or compromised or somewhat segregated when they're choosing one technology versus the other, which is a great thing.
Oddly enough I have been impressed with the IP Office platform so much that I have integrated one into my home. My wife was not happy with it initially but once she started using it she was very happy with the results. It helped that I programmed it to work just like a home phone but with features and options that I can utilize remotely. I would be more than happy to put an AVAYA IP Office against any other phone system on the market, and let you be the judge.
The service can be intermittent and the call forwarding feature will not always work perfectly. There will be periods of time where the calling feature will not work at all and people on the other end can hear me but I am unable to hear them. It also requires a fairly strong signal which can be an issue if you work somewhere remote or a building without much service.
Avaya IP Office is a great system that is somewhat affordable for most SMB's. However, In our experience, Avaya IP Office has a tendency to shelve some of the license as you upgrade the software release on the PBX switch without giving back any comparable license to compensate. The Voicemail Pro license is quite expensive and most of the functionality that most business needs are not covered in the standard voicemail offering.
Cisco Webex Calling is an outstanding cloud collaboration that includes enterprise-grade cloud phone system designed for the modern hybrid workplace. Webex Calling integrates calling, messaging, and meetings into a single, intuitive platform, empowering your teams with unparalleled flexibility and productivity. Benefit from advanced features like HD audio and video, voicemail to email, call forwarding, and intelligent call routing, ensuring crystal-clear communication and efficient workflows from any device, anywhere. Webex Calling prioritizes security and reliability, offering redundant data centers and end-to-end encryption to safeguard your conversations. Its scalable architecture effortlessly adapts to your envolving business needs, providing a future-proof communication foundation. Enhance collaboration and streamline operations with a solution that's not just a phone system, but a comprehensive communication hub.
I've not actually had it ever be unavailable when I needed to use it. As mentioned before, a network outage would take it down, but we have redundant systems for our network connections with automatic failover.
I don't really see this impacting any other system performance at all. The client is very light use on resources, even on my iPhone. I don't know what else it connects to behind the scenes other then the campus directory, but I haven't seen or heard of any impacts. It seems fairly self contained except for wherever it interfaces with the general telephone system connectivity outside the campus.
I have been working for a long time with Cisco as a provider and also Cisco TAC and Cisco Support Engineers. The support starts right beforehand in the documentation of the product you are interested in. From the start you have a good, complete, and detailed and easy to read datasheet and there's always someone available to answer any questions.
Much better feature set with Avaya IP Office, and I really feel you're getting feature-rich telephony for a well priced switch. The system is very adaptable and a much better fit than legacy key systems and cloud-based UCaaS solutions competing in the same market. With the Avaya brand behind the system, there is also a form of working with a Trusted partner with many years in the UC space.
As Kamailio SIP Server is an open source, the major impact is on cost; it's free to use compared to any other Softswitch or server in the market. You can also customize it to your need and use the features that you need, which is one of the major plus points for the Kamailio SIP Server. And one server is enough to handle thousands of calls simultaneously.
The company uses Microsoft Teams. They do use Microsoft Teams right now and for a long time a lot of the different practices have been using on-premise, contact Call Manager and Unified Communications Express. But Cisco WebEx, the cloud-based product is one of the new ones. And some of our other site practices are also using RingCentral. So cloud calling is not new to the company. For those of us who are familiar with Cisco products, the transition to WebEx calling is not as difficult as it might be for some other products. Going from on-prem to RingCentral, there is more of a learning curve with.
So far it has been very reliable, with very little down time that was associated with the product itself. We have had network outages due to external factors such as construction cutting a fiber link, but other than that kind of thing not much for failures.
Webex calling is a good solution for customer which are ready for cloud.
However some customers doesn't want to share their CDR to a UcaaS so Cisco shouldn't focus on cloud opportunity and up to me the gap of investment, marketing, evangelization is too big weighing the pros and cons for cloud too often
