To test the CUE voicemail, I established delivery and retrieval to individual and group mailboxes, then tested admin functions such as adding/deleting users and changing passwords.
I also verified that the auto-attendant properly handled dial-by-name and dial-by-extension.
To hear a sample of the audio interaction with Cisco Unity Express and the Auto Attendant, go to www.nwc.com/showitem.jhtml?docid=1421sp2.
This first release of CUE lacks some standard features found on key systems, such as emergency and alternate auto-attendant greetings, voicemail distribution lists and broadcast messages, and subscriber features like pause, fast forward/reverse and message speed up/slow down. Although Cisco says it plans to include these features in future releases, their absence significantly degrades the end-user experience.
A Tough Call
With more than 85 percent of the router market share, Cisco has the home-field advantage when it comes to branch office IP telephony. But when compared with turnkey small-office solutions such as those from Vertical Networks, Cisco's offering is at a price and feature disadvantage. Competing solutions offer more telephony applications, better management and faster deployment. If you already use one of the supported Cisco routers, though, you can add IP telephony for less than a turnkey solution, and you'll gain the added benefit of having only a single device to manage for voice and data.
Joel Conover, formerly a senior technology editor at Network Computing, is a principal analyst at tactical competitive response solutions firm Current Analysis. Write to him at [email protected].
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Call Manager Express version 3.0 feature list (provided by Cisco):
Phone features:
Trunk features:
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