| Approved WEEE companies |
| Contact us for advice on WEEE or who are the experienced companies offering removal and disposal services for old equipment from Ericsson / Aastra. |
| Green advice |
| howgreenisit specialize in providing professional services in keeping your ICT operations as green as possible link |
Second user equipment is widely available in the UK and International markets, I suppose it is to be expected with over 20 million lines of MD110 sold worldwide at the last count. Aastra like Ericsson before it do not encourage the existence of this market and have no direct policy of offering second user options. What needs to be understood are the options that exist and what pitfalls you need to be wary of. Not very green but that is the industry for you, Aastra have, to give them credit, done a lot more than their competition to look after end user investments and migration is a very straight forward option rather than throw away and start again.
A number of the existing UK Aastra partners do provide second user equipment options however these options tend to revolve around maintenance spares or replacements for faulty items. The effective second user market place as a option for end users today given the inability to purchase further licenses on BC12 is all but ended.
The old saying "buyer beware" sums up the purchasing of second user equipment very well. The best advice is to try and take all reasonable precautions, try and gain awareness of where the cards came from and their age. Make sure you can install the equipment without compromising your service/support agreement. Make sure you have both the physical space and the right software installed to accommodate your requirements.
Pre BC10 there are no licensing issues to consider. Make sure the cards or equipment you are purchasing have the right revision levels and part codes to ensure that the items are compatible with your system's software and hardware versions. If you have a system on software releases BC10 and above you must purchase licences via a certified partner Aastra. You can read more about licensing here.
If you are looking to buy and have the item installed make sure the maintenance of the cards is covered, and that the installation is carried out by an accredited company that will not compromise your service agreement. A number of maintainers may insist that a MAT (maintenance acceptance test) is carried out, this will almost certainly incur a charge.
Remember...
Investigate maintenance impact.
If your system is on BC10, 11 or 12 license sales are stopped. If you want to expand your system capacity or add new features and you are on any of the above releases or earlier you will need to purchase an upgrade.
If you purchase supply-only ensure you have a partner who is both willing and able to implement them and that you have spare licences.
Make sure you inform the supplier of the type of rack practice you have installed, this is to ensure the cabling sets are correct and included in the costs.
Check the supplier has validated the revision levels of the item, don't always trust the labels alone!
As of July 2010 further purchases of licenses on BC12 have ceased.