Mitel 3300 - Problems with MC320 ONS line cards

[Sultel]

We have a 3300 with 340 analog ports. We are having lots of bad ports lately (dead at the phone and the light stays on for that port on ONS card).
I have been replacing the cards as needed but that gets expensive.

Was curious if anyone has had this issue, possible causes and anyway to repair these cards?

Thanks

[acejavelin]

These are ancient SX2000 cards... plentiful on the secondary market cheaply (like $100 USD or so) but pushing 30 years old now. Honestly you should be working to migrate away from these to ASUs or ATAs... We have had good luck with Grandstream units.

[lundah]

These are ancient SX2000 cards... plentiful on the secondary market cheaply (like $100 USD or so) but pushing 30 years old now. Honestly you should be working to migrate away from these to ASUs or ATAs... We have had good luck with Grandstream units.

Not to hijack the thread, but which Grandstream models have you been using? I've been using AudioCodes, which are reliable, but leave a lot to be desired in the configuration ease and price categories.

[acejavelin]

These are ancient SX2000 cards... plentiful on the secondary market cheaply (like $100 USD or so) but pushing 30 years old now. Honestly you should be working to migrate away from these to ASUs or ATAs... We have had good luck with Grandstream units.

Not to hijack the thread, but which Grandstream models have you been using? I've been using AudioCodes, which are reliable, but leave a lot to be desired in the configuration ease and price categories.

GXW4200 series... We have several dozen on our hosted platform, and maybe 8-10 on Mitels. We also use a lot of HT812/814 models.

[ZuluAlpha]

We have a high rise with several hundred analog connections, mostly due to fax machines and use ASU-II's which do really well and aren't prohibitively expensive.

[johnp]

I also find Grandstreams to work easier that either audiocodes or the mediatrix/mitel units. The 813 works great for adding an fxo port and they have a great price point.

[lundah]

I also find Grandstreams to work easier that either audiocodes or the mediatrix/mitel units. The 813 works great for adding an fxo port and they have a great price point.

I appreciate the feedback. I came to prefer the Mediatrix units over AudioCodes due to ease of setup and price, but if the Grandstream units are just as easy & reliable, it's hard to ignore the price difference. This is for a local government, so anywhere I can save the taxpayers a few bucks is always an easy sell.

[acejavelin]

We have a high rise with several hundred analog connections, mostly due to fax machines and use ASU-II's which do really well and aren't prohibitively expensive.

I find these are OK up to two of them... or 96 ports... Once you starting getting into triple digit analog POTS extensions, using ATAs makes a lot more sense cost wise. OP had 340 analog extensions, which would require 7 ASUII with two 24-port cards each, and one with a single card for 8 total. I am not against ASU's at all, but at this scale I would look at a different solution.

That said, on the secondary market these are getting pretty cheap, if you have enough CIM ports on your chassis. 

[AH64Armament]

What software version are you running on the 3300's?
The PER nodes were officially "no longer supported" after MCD 6.x.  I have a large customer with about 20 PER nodes spread across 13 3300's that I got a letter from Mitel that Mitel would continue to provide product support on the platform, but not on the PER nodes or their associated cards - even though they believe they would continue to work on MiVB 7... and subsequently 8. 

We since upgraded the customer to MiVB 8 to accommodate the 69xx phones and the less expensive Single-Line Licenses to accommodate the Generic SIP on ATA's.

We've been replacing the ONS users with Grandstream ATA's (HT8xx) and Grandstream Gateways (GXW4224).
I too find Grandstream much easier to use than other brands.

As for migrating the ONS ports to ASU-II's and their cards - I believe that there's a promo for that.  However, my analysis of the pricing is that the Single-Line licenses needed along with the Grandstream gateways is better pricing than the promo... plus the Generic SIP device can be set to resilient where they can't be on the ASU-II's.

I can look to see how many MC320's I have and sell them to you if you'd like.