What Ed said is correct. The place I work converted to a Cisco system a couple months ago. The station related changes are handled by an in-house telephone tech. The IT people handle the computer networking. A year or more ago I had the chance to work with a demo Call Manager and Cisco phones. The line, trunk, and route provisioning appear to be things that someone with PBX or C.O. switch background could handle without much trouble. Setting up the network is another matter. I think you’d want a good background in computer networking. I keep reading and hearing that the data network is the key to success. I agree with this.
When our conversion took place a couple months ago I entered a post summing up how I felt the cutover went and how the service was. I’ll not go into those details again except to say that I was very disappointed that the vendor and the IT department did not do adequate testing prior to the cut. I identified most of the problems and I wasn’t part of the process. I also wrote that we had experienced some echo problems but they appeared to have been resolved.
I was writing this reply yesterday and I was interrupted by a call. I had the echo problem on that call. I spoke to the telecom person. He said he had gotten a couple of call about jitter. He said he was working with the vendor so I guess there are still a few problems.
I’m not sure what the future of IP telephony is. I suspect that it is here to stay and that it will improve over time. As an old, former, and 4th generation telephone person I naturally favor traditional telephone systems using the traditional telephone network. However, I know things change. We went from open wire to fiber optics. We change the way we do our business with the change of technology. Everything new has a period where the bugs are getting worked out. The important thing is having people involved who understand what providing good service means. Telephone people know this. They are familiar with the 5 nines. I’m not that all IT people understand this. What I saw where I work attested to this. I have spoken to other people who had less than successful conversions. IT departments controlled those conversions.
This is not meant as a slap at IT people. Most of the IT people I know a nice people and very talented and very knowledgeable. However they lack the experience when it comes to implementing a telephone cutover. They don’t know the pitfalls because they haven’t experienced them. Many will gain that experience but I think there will always be a place for telephone people even in a world of IP telephony. Sorry for the long post.
