Yup, POTS is still pretty hard to beat any way you look at it. I'm still telling all of my customers to wait at LEAST another year or two on VOIP until they can (hopefully) perfect the technology a little more.
For applications where "failure is not an option" like banks, police & fire stations, small hospitals etc., MICS with POTS (or at least a few POTS back up lines if they insist on a T-1) is the ONLY way to go!
You'd think Nortel would get smart and just come out with a VOIP card for the MICS and give the BCM the old heave HO before they finish their death plunge off into the abyss but NOOOO! They still want everyone to get rid of that diehard, dependable, Canadian made (if you're lucky) MICS and buy into that worthless, overpriced, BS BCM AND VOIP!
I also like to tell 'em that whenever they're ready to give up on that rock solid MICS AND spend way too much money AND be a Nortel/VOIP guinea pig, just let me know because we have no problem reconditioning and reselling those (last Canadian made) MIC Systems. We'll even give them a one or two year warranty depending on it's age. Now if it's a Mexican or Chinese made (or other) MICS? Nothing personal but, we'll pass thanks.
Back in the early 80's I used to sell, install & maintain whatever brand my customers wanted until it finally dawned on me that I would never be able to keep them all happy in the long run if they insisted on buying substandard systems. I started converting my entire (small to medium sized) customer base over to Norstar back in the early '90s with almost no help at all from Nortel along the way and I've got nothing but happy customers now.
I'm afraid we're all gonna see a lot of customers dumping all of their Nortel gear like a hot rock before long because of their bankruptcy and because they think they're not gonna be able to get parts or tech support if Nortel can't recover.
If Nortel bit the dust today, I know we would have no problem getting parts or tech support for at least another ten years. Hopefully I'll be retired by then but until something better comes along (and I haven't seen it yet) I'm sticking with MICS & CICS for my smaller customers!
Now if we could just get the damned economy going again...
Phonehed in Dallas