Phones, phone lines and phone services

[attikaman]

Hi

We have an old-ish Samsung DCS in our shared office. it serves about 20 people in four small companies. We have a PC-driven call logger to divvy up the bills, and until last week, a separate, ancient PC running a Replay Plus voicemail system. So ancient that it actually ran under DOS - but it was a good and reliable system. However, the voicemail PC crashed last week and is unfixable. Two questions:

1/. I work alone and am therefore often away from my desk. I need a voicemail system urgently. For a short-term fix, can I buy an ordinary domestic voicemail unit and plug it in line with my extension, or will this not work with a digital line?

2/. In the longer term, what's the best way to restore voicemail to the entire serviced office without spending a fortune?!

I should add that I am the member of this group of companies charged with maintaining the phone system. Doesn't mean I know anything about them, so be gentle!

Steve

[chriscommsfm]

Hi Steve

I'm assuming that the Replay Plus software is the package which was sold in the UK by a company called Active Voice. If this is the case then this product has been discontinued.

1) A consumer answering machine should provide you an emergency fix. You will need to plug the machine into your line port, however, a consumer unit will have a standard telephone jack and your line port will have an ethernet interface so you'll need an adapter to marry them up.

2) Longer term, there are 2 options. You can buy a refurbished PC and then re-install and configure your Replay Plus software - but keep in mind this software is no longer supported by the distributor. Your other alternative is to buy a MSV card which will plug directly into your Samsung box. This card will hold about 30 hours of voicemail recordings and will negate the need to run a seperate PC in parallel to your phone system. Refurbished models should be available and I can put you in touch with one of our BT Resellers who should be able to secure one for you but I need to know the age and model / revision number of your Samsung DCS.

You can either post the details here or pm me.

Chris