Man oh Man, can I relate to these issues. I am in Kabul, Afghanistan. I got here about six months ago, and the big boys wanted me to get something so they could make conference calls, I suggested an IP Office since that was all they wanted, they liked the idea, but when I flew to Dubai to work with a vendor, they told me the IP Office had issues with E1 interfaces, and told me they would sell me an 8300 with g700 for less. That seemed like a good idea, but, with support here in Afghanistan being so difficult, I think I should have went with the IP Office, because it wouldn't require so much network interfacing, I also question the validity of E1s having problems in IP Office, I have installed a lot of them in America with T1s, and they run flawlessly.
Anyway, I went bac to Dubai, and got trained, we worked in the lab, loading Linux and CM, then configured all the goodies, a three digit dial plan, and added two stations in the 100 range. I emailed back to my boss that I needed five IP adrresses from the Kabul network, so we could configure the machine and the Media Gateway, as they usually do here, they sat on their hands, and I came back, waited nearly three months for the box to arrive. It got here, and I ran my cabling, and racked the Server, I then went into AIW, and started the programming, all seemed well, I entered IPs I had begged for from IP, and asked them what the IP route was, they swore it was 0.0.0.0 and then the default gateway, so I had to take their word on it. Everytime I got to the part where the controller list tells you to ping the server, it would fail, I kept telling IP I thought there was a problem getting through the routing, but they wouldn't listen. Worse than all of this, when I went into emulation mode, the Media Gateway was installed as Gateway 2, even though we only have one box, and my dial plan would not allow me to add extensions in the 100 range. I couldn't find the extensions we had built in Dubai, slowly things became clear, I did not have the same box in my hands, that I had worked on in Dubai, as it was all preconfigured, obviously as an expansion Cabinet. Tech support is very hard to reach from here, but when I did reach them they just kept giving me generic troubleshooting tips which I had performed a dozen times before calling them. I asked for the license key and proceeded to reinstall CM, it went OK until I tried to log back in, it won't accept my login credentials, I suspect it was reset and must be done by an Avaya Associate, so I am dead in the water. Such a shame. I really like Avaya, but, their assumption that any install will have easy access to their craft techs through remote, is not good. Here in Kabul, we cannot really call out of country, when we do get a connection, it is so bad it is essentially useless, oddly enough, we have decent Internet Service, so, I usually use Skype when I need to make a call, although it doesn't work when I call Dubai or Iran, I can hear them, but on their phones, mobile, office, etc, they can't hear me. i don't know how I am going to get this password problem straightened out since we don't have dial in modem capability. These guys wanted this done in a hurry, but sat ontheir hands and got it to me with a week to go before my Christmas vacation, I leave tomorrow for the States, and this thing is dead, dead, dead, and they think it is my fault, life can really suck!
