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One of the grand-daddies of new-age "CT" phone systems keeps on truckin' with VoIP end points, lots of new features and still one of the best desktop call-handling GUIs money can buy.
Seems like ages ago that Artisoft's TeleVantage was the official phone system for Communications Convergence (nee Computer Telephony) Magazine's testlab in the beautiful Dogpatch section of San Francisco. At the time (1996), it was one of only a handful of "CT" PBX options. It ran in a Windows server. It had by far the best call-processing client software of its day (and in fact, that package was better than most of the GUIs we see today).
Our last version of their server software was TeleAdvantage 2. Recently, we asked Artisoft to send us and CT Labs TeleVantage 6, which they did -pre-installed on a turnkey server. They also sent two Uniden UIP 300 H.323 IP phones and we used some generic analog phones as well. The latter would connect over a local telephone network and its physical wires.
The system is scalable from 4×8 to 288×720 (it didn't even support T1 trunking when we first used it). It uses Intel/Dialogic cards and software license keys. The former lets it handle analog, digital (Tl robbed bit and PRI, El (R2 and PRI) and BRI) and VoIP trunking.
It supports a variety of end points now, including the popular Toshiba digital sets with and without screen display and models with 10 and 20 programmable buttons/call appearance lights. Any H.323 phone can be used with TeleVantage too, although Artisoft partners with and recommends the Uniden UIP300 and the Polycom IP500 as VoIP desksets.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Feature-wise, CT Labs found the TeleVantage 6 very strong. It has full ACD functionality, call screening, customizable auto-attendant, and touchtone call-control features from station phones.
The call control GUIs are still a major strength. They're well-designed, with descriptive labels and easily identifiable icons. The TeleVantage 6 telephone user interfaces were also found to be logically designed with informative prompts.
All the tested features were found to work without problems. CT Labs did find that the Uniden phones sometimes had one to two seconds of delay in receiving dialtone after going offhook or before ringing when a internal call was placed....