Fonality Training. Should I go? Is it worth it?

Robert,

I did see that after I posted... should have refreshed before I posted. I did find it very interesting! and what a course of events.

I am amazed at how some small things can turn out to have some great and unexpected results!

Thanks!

John

Good evening johnjces,

I'm the guy who started the "beginning of the end" posting. Regarding the training it would depend entirely what you want to achieve and what product you are interested in.

TB Pro has LESS functionality and is LES flexible than TB CE. CE requires more knowledge and the heart of CE is actually FreePBX - which is not a Fonality product.

I'm in the same boat as you and have decided against the Fonailty training and have decided to go with generic FreePBX training due to the nervousness we are all experiencing with Fonality. Put it this way, if you go for the Generic training then you are not tied to Fonality, but the information / knowledge is still applicable to the CE product. If not then there are a number or other distro's that use FreePBX and the core code.

We decided that TB PRO wasn't for us due to the pricing model not being a "good fit" in New Zealand, but you need to make your own mind up about this. The other problem I have is very few customers will allow me to install a Linux server on their network and give a "unknown" organization "root" access to that box! - That is what happens with Pro!!!

I see that TB have now pulled the ANNUAL support option for TB CE and you can only purchase it on a hourly basis. I sent an email the other day to the support team asking about the "file count" issue in the recording interface. They responded and answered the question but told me that in future this type of question was "out of scope" of the support agreement! It seems that they have also changed what they actually now choose to support as well...

Hope this helps

Hi from N3GLV,
I just noticed the above post and happened to be sitting at a centos workstation/pbx in the Digium
training room. Listening to Phillippe Lindheimer second day lecture at the Open Telephony Training
Seminar. The training seems to be fairly comprehensive so far and as would be expected it's been
related to the freepbx system, looking forward into the lesson plan in the book the other lecture people
will be covering many more in-depth things, like security etc.
Aside from the tech info the human networking / new friends and fellow geeks from around the world
has been wonderful. So, I guess in short, hell yeah I'm having a good time and even though I have been
doing pbx setups since asterisk @ home and xorcom rapid and the very first version of TB, it's not a waste
of my time by any means. In fact, I would love to be able to attend another one in a year or so.

Best wishes and see you around IRC
de N3GLV
www.voipcoop.org
www.pbxtechs.com

OTTS has been held at Charleston, SC, Las Vegas, and Digium HQ in Huntsville, AL. We have gravitated towards doing most of our events at Digium HQ because of their really nice training room setup and friendly Digium people, but that's not to say we won't hold future events at other locations. In addition, we are finalizing licensing the training for European venues and other domestic venues.

Saw that and checked it out again.

The class at Digium is 4 days the one in WA is 3 days... just trying now to find out the differences. Good timing!

Thanks!

John

trixbox PRO is a great product used by thousands of customers world wide. We find the typical PRO reseller just wants a system that works for his customers and is easy to manage. Usually he customers like it because of features like HUD with it's ability to control communications from one place. Out typical CE reseller wants to tweak the systems a little more and doesn't mind going onsite for support. They also like the ability to sell a product that costs them nothing even if it's less functional and harder to support.

The trixbox training is good because it covers both products. Much of the time is spent learning how to setup and troubleshoot a SIP phone system. We do spend some time going through all the features and how to set them up. But the setup and troubleshooting part of the class is the real value. Anybody can walk you through the features of a system but our class is taught be people from our support department with front line knowledge of what works and what doesn't in the IP telephony world. Anybody in this industry can use that. I even learned a few things we I took the class and I invented trixbox :)

Andrew, if you are going to get training, you need to get it from people who are on the street right now. Every OTTS trainer is a member of the official FreePBX support department. Our combined IT expertise is something over 50 years in this space.

The weather should be very nice. Should be Shrimp season too. Yummm.

both sound good, Sunshine or Shrimp. But ... I'm going to opt for the fresh shrimp so I look forward to seeing any of you who choose to come up to Lummi Island. I've stayed there and had the food, so no convincing needed on my part!

btw - if you like digging more into Linux, stick around after the class for the LinuxFest Northwest 2009 10th Anniversary that weekend, it's free and has had a lot of very interesting and valuable talks in the past!

I'll see you on Lummi Island!