Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: davep@u.washington.edu (David Ptasnik) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Experiences With Spirit and Meridian Phone Systems Message-ID: <8884@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 11 Jun 90 17:27:21 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 24 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 428, Message 11 of 11 In article 6633 of comp.dcom.telecom, ritter@jarsun1.zone1. com (chuck ritter) writes: >My company is replacing a fifteen year old six button Comkey system >Our primary requirements are reliability and longevity. Both the AT&T >Spirit and Northern Telecom Norstar Meridian systems meet our needs on >paper. they are comparably priced - the Merlin II while digital is >substantially more money and has more expansion capacity The Spirit is not the equal of the Meridian. It is much more cheaply built. Most users I have seen with it are dissatisfied with the quality. The Meridian is on the same toughness level as the Merlin, but appears to be substantially more feature rich than the Merlin. The Merlin lacks such basics as station based call forwarding busy and don't answer. I will admit, though, that I have never been much of a fan of AT&T from a price/value point of view. I think that there are many better deals and systems out there. You might also consider an Inter-Tel system (also marketed as the Premier, same mfg. but sold thru supply houses). This would be more equivalent to the spirit, and would probably cost less. davep@cac.washington.edu