Review of the Avaya 1416 Telephone for Business Phone Systems

 

Avaya is the current name for a former company that we are all familiar with, Bell. It has taken A LOT of time to move from Bell to Avaya, and in fact there were several other names along the way including AT&T and Lucent; not to mention the monumental purchase of Nortel in 2008. This was big news in the Tampa Nortel community. But just like Nortel, Avaya has had families of phones that have been released and that were widely accepted by their respective users. Among these is the Avaya 1416, the bread and butter of the current Avaya digital phone series. While using TDM protocols, this phone has some powerful features and in fact seamlessly integrates with the VoIP Avaya IP Office, so is a great choice for users who do not want or cannot rehab their data network to allow VoIP traffic.

 

The Avaya 1416, a replacement for the Nortel T7316e

Nortel was famous for the ubiquitous Nortel/ Norstar T7316 phone. After the purchase of Nortel by Avaya, a new phone was needed to satisfy users who had become accustomed to phones with lots of buttons. The previous 5400 series from Avaya, while functional and beautifully designed, lacked a choice with a high compliment of buttons. The Avaya 1416 has buttons all over the place! Sixteen (16) programmable buttons line the right side of the telephone and can be used as line appearance, dss/ blf, or feature keys. In the center of the phone are twelve (12) pre- programmed function keys including Redial, Conference, Hold, Transfer and other commonly used features. Above these are a voice mail button which illuminates with messages, and a directional pad for working in the screen. The nice sized LCD display also has three soft keys.

Physical layout of the Avaya 1416 phone for Business

In addition to a wealth of buttons, the telephone also has two ways of sitting on the desk, a more raised vertical position and a flatter, more standard “telephone” position. The back- lit screen adjusts to work with either pose and the handset is secured in both as well.

 

Visual Voice Mail on the Avaya 1416

What is probably a favorite feature on the Avaya 1416 is the integrated Visual Voicemail. Many people may be unfamiliar with this feature; however this is fast becoming a FAVORITE element of the phone for our customers.  Basically, after the voicemail button is pressed, users can use the three soft keys beneath the screen for quickly moving through the voicemail utilizing playback options such as:

• Listen / Pause- Start/stop playback of the currently displayed message.
• Delete- Delete the message.
• More- Switch between the different sets of available soft key functions.
• Save- Mark the message as saved. Saved messages are not normally automatically deleted.
• Copy- Copy the message to another mailbox.
• Call- Call the person who left the message.

 

Conclusion on the Avaya 1416

The new Avaya family of phones hits the mark for price, functionality, and style. Users who are looking to move up to VoIP but do not want to invest in a costly data makeover will be impressed with the Avaya 1416 both for its ease of use and the familiar feature set. Former Nortel users will equally be happy with the quality of the phone. Nortel Tampa users fear not! Avaya has you covered with a simple to use phone that will be an easy transition for users. But if you are not quite ready to upgrade, CSM can service Nortel, Norstar, and Meridian systems until you are.