Why your Norstar phone system still has value.

In case you haven't heard, Nortel Networks has gone away for good. The company has been split up and sold off. The business telephone equipment division was acquired by Avaya, Inc., one of Nortel's biggest competitors.

Avaya has chosen to discontinue the Norstar telephone system effective October 2010. So almost a year later and thousands upon thousands of Norstar system are humming away, answering phone calls and working quite well. The Norstar has been great system for customers:

• Feature rich
• Easy to use
• Phones are very reliable and very durable
• Expandable
• Upgradeable to the BCM product line (BCM also discontinued)
• Automatic set relocation
• Remote maintenance
• Caller ID, CTI Integration still available!

There are hundreds of independent dealers across the country who have, and will continue to, make it their business to support Norstar customers. Spare parts are a plenty, the equipment is reliable and robust. If you want VoIP capability, you can migrate to VoIP trunks, but remember VoIP doesn't mean savings.

Take our advice:don't throw your Norstar away! The quality and reliability aren't to be found anywhere else on the market at the moment.

Is hosted VoIP right for your business?

We sell telephone systems to small and medium sized business throughout New Jersey. Recently a potential new customer called to say their phone system wasn't working correctly. We quoted them a repair price of $1600 for their 7 year old Nortel BCM telephone system and we included a two year warranty on the equipment. They have 12 telephone sets and 5 outside lines.

The customer chose to scrap their system in favor of hosted VoIP. We weren't surprised they chose hosted voip but from a business perspective we were puzzled.

Here is what they paid with a 2 year contract:

• $300.00 monthly service charge
• $30 per month per telephone ($360)
• So figure $660 per month for 24 months = $15,840.00
• That price includes all of their US and North America long distance

So they get new phones but over spent by thousands. How?

They could easily switch to a cable phone service and repair their Nortel BCM:

• 5 lines from a Cable company with high speed internet and unlimited long distance: $300 per month
• That works out to be $7200
• Plus the repair cost of $1600
• Total 2 year cost: $8800!

So they over pay by: 15,840 - 8800 = $7040!!!!

Technically speaking, hosted VoIP is pretty cool and you don't have to worry about any equipment to maintain. But what are the drawbacks: 

• You could have quality issues on your LAN 
• The chance of an outage is not reduced compared to your own equipment or a cut cable on the street.
• You may have to re-wire your office
• Can you trust the cloud?