Suggestions for an inexpensive business phone system?

Question by J Mer: Suggestions for an inexpensive business phone system?
We currently lease a Nortel Norstar phone system, but would like to buy a system flat out so we can eliminate monthly payments and manage it ourselves (we currently get billed if we call just to ask a question, and we have to have them come in to add/remove mailboxes, etc.).

We have 10 employees right now, but have 14 extensions currently open in the office (2 are empty desks, and 2 are common area rooms). We would need a good voice mail system that is remotely accessible, auto-attendant and automatic call distribution, music while on hold would be nice, and the ability to automatically forward calls to other extensions or outside numbers. We do not have VoIP or anything fancy like that — we pay our phone company for 6 lines (one of which is a fax line). We only have one phone number public, which seems to automatically connect to any of the 5 lines depending on which is open.

Can anyone recommend an affordable and easy to manage phone system?

Best answer:

Answer by MC Wife
About 3 years ago, I purchased an Avaya Partner ACS system for an office of 9 people, and we were very pleased with the functionality (voice mail, conferencing, auto attendant, music on hold where you supply the music, dial by name directory…) and the pricing (less than $ 3000 installed with a warranty).

We did have the vendor do the original installation as the initial programing was not very intuitive. However, after the system was set-up, we administered everything among our non-techie team members. I can’t remember how many users this system would have supported, but if you search for Avaya Partner phone systems in any search engine, you should get about a million hits.

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