Meridian Mail is one of the early all-digital

voicemail A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to ind ...

systems, running on Meridian1 / SL-1 digital PBX systems from

Northern Telecom Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

(later known as Nortel). In the early 1980s Northern Telecom introduced the Norstar. The Norstar was the first all-digital system suitable for small-sized offices (up to 192 lines), and became one of their major product lines. The Norstar is powered by a 16 MHz

Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

, and uses only a fraction of the CPU's power. Nortel executives were interested in finding ways to use that excess power, as long as their customers paid for the privilege. Nortel asked their research arm,

Bell Northern Research Bell-Northern Research (BNR) was a telecommunications research and development company established In 1971 when Bell Canada and Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations. It was jointly owned by Bell Canada and Northern Telecom. BNR ...

(BNR), to look for ways to spend those cycles. Meridian Mail was developed as a result. Meridian Mail was discontinued by Nortel,Retirement notice, 2006
Discontinued and has been replaced by CallPilot, which in fact uses the same features and codes as Meridian Mail, but unlike Meridian Mail, allows newer features such as Unified Messaging. Unlike older Nortel systems, where the Meridian PBXs were assigned Meridian Mail and the Norstar systems were assigned Norstar VoiceMail or Startalk Flash VoiceMail, CallPilot was branded for both the Communication Servers PBX and Business Communication Manager Hybrid/Key telephone systems. CallPilot is one of the products acquired by

Avaya Avaya Holdings Corp., often shortened to Avaya (), is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includ ...

in their purchase of Nortel Enterprise Solutions in 2009.

References

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External links

Meridian Mail
Nortel Telephone service enhanced features Voicemail Nortel products

See also

References

External links