exclusive Samsung is better known for its consumer electronics and mobile phones, despite the company having a presence in the Australian communications market for almost 20 years. The OfficeServ 7100 is Samsung Communications' latest addition to its series of "convergence telecommunications solutions" products. Find out why it's one of the best VoIP products for Australian small businesses in our exclusive local review.
How We Tested
Our aim, with all VoIP reviews, is to examine a variety of features common to telephony systems including the following:
- Voice quality: We give a subjective rating of voice reception quality.
- Ease of use: We consider the intuitiveness of phone operation and configuration.
- Configuration options: Is a system/phone configurable from the handset only or is there a PC based interface?
- Ergonomics: A phone should be comfortable to hold and operate.
- Interoperability: Can the server operate with other brands of SIP handset?
- Documentation: Clarity of writing style and diagrams.
Samsung supplied us not only with a OfficeServ 7100 server, but a variety of handsets to demonstrate its wide ranging capacities.
What's inside
The 7100 is a rack-mount device and is designed for customisation -- both initially and later as your requirements grow. The basic cabinet supports three slots, one of which carries the main CPU. The CPU is a 375MHz Mindspeed M82511G processor running a Linux OS.
Software and messages are stored on a MMC card which allows for service staff to quickly replace or update in a moment if required. Lesser adjustments can be made via a Web interface, either via LAN or the Internet. The other slots may carry a variety of ports depending on the needs of the individual business with support for four to 32 stations depending on the type of device attached.
The 7100 supports multiple telephony standards. In addition to IP telephony, standard PSTN telephony is supported in both digital and analog forms and there is also the capacity to handle e-mail and soft phone connections and wireless services.
Third party SIP devices should co-operate with the Samsung system, but it would be advisable to avoid this given the fact that the SIP "standard" is not as standard as we would all like at this stage and the full range of services on the OfficeServ 7100 may not be available on third party devices. Support for PoE (power over Ethernet) allows for reduced cable-clutter and confusion in the office.
The handsets supplied for testing were both stylish and functional. Display angles can be set to suit the user and buttons are well spaced and show great consistency between phone models. The voice quality of all the phones supplied was excellent. Not surprisingly, we did find a little static if we took the wireless models (the SMT-W5100) to a separate concrete-lined room. The wireless phones link to the server via an access point supporting both 802.11a and 802.11 b/g wireless networking. Overall the handset performance was very pleasing.
We also looked at the ITP-5100V Video phone, which operates at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. While we tested the video facilities only over a local connection we found the image quality was good. The nature of the LCD display meant that horizontal lines were apparent in the image, however these were not detrimental to the user experience. Naturally you might suffer from low video refresh rates if you use this system over a relatively slow Internet connection. Video calls can also be made via the Softphone application supplied with the OfficeServ 7100.
Call handling options are too many to list, suffice to say many standard features are supported. Beyond transfers and voice messaging there is the capacity to send e-mail notifications of calls and other significant events as well as voice recordings (WAV files) of messages received or notes that the user wishes to record for their own benefit when they have hands and paper available.
Flexible user groups allow calls, messages and configuration options to be directed to particular sets of telephones. These groups may overlap and can be assigned to one of nine administrative levels each with its own password protection. Customer service managers will appreciate the ability track which calls have gone unanswered by a given department and individuals can also use a PC-based interface to track their personal call history.
I just purchased an 7100 system. The one good thing I have to say about it is it does have the features I needed at the most affordable price I found. The main feature I was looking for was call que or ACD/UCD where callers are placed in a que til the call can be answered.
Now the bad things. This thing is like a computer that you have to re-install Windows everytime you turn it off. It has 3 different places in the tools you can backup and restore the phone system and VM system, none of them backup and restore everything. After simply turning it off you lose all settings and have to restore what you can. Custom prompt recording are usually lost during restores as well as many settings. After doing some restores you have to reboot the system which takes about 3 minutes.
This article says the 7100 is easy to program and use, yeah right. There are no instructions or definitions for most settings and it looks like it was designed by 100 different departments that threw it all together. There is no consistency in any of the programming. Take for instance the default passwords. In some places the default is 0000 others 1234 others 4321 WTF??? A default password is supposed to be a default password.
The whole system is mickey mouse at best, a good example is the music on hold connection, it uses a RJ11 or RJ45 plug instead of a standard 3.5mm plug and what do the resellers of the 7100 tell you, "Cut a phone cable and a 3.5mm plug cable in half, splice the wires together, tape it up and then connect it." Maybe I should just use some duck tape and chicken wire to connect my music on hold to my new $2000.00 phone system.
The good: Cheapest price with the feature I needed.
The bad: Programming is mickey mouse, terrible documentation, loses all setting at power off.
There are 3 different places to do backups and restores but you can set the system up the way you want, do backups, shut the system down and do the restores and everything will not be back the way it was, it loses settings, custom recorded prompts. No uniformity in programming, different default passwords everywhere, same functions are done by different keys depending on where you are in programming. They have MMC codes like 601 and other codes like 4.2.1, and they do not conincide, why have different codes for different interfaces, why not use the same codes everywhere.